Cold Iron
by Spacebutt
Summary: Kidnapped by Fawkes, Duo suddenly has to face a megalomaniac, magic explosions and a Snape. At the same time, Hogwarts has to deal with painfully cheerful and ornery Shinigami. But it turns out that the braided smartass might be the answer to Voldemort.
1. Chapter 1: Ball Lightning

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 1: Ball Lightning**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **Hints of 1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo.)

**Story notes**: This fic begins in the winter of 1995, Harry's fifth year. For the sake of the plot I've tweaked a couple things, but I'll try my best to make them clear as I go along. As for fitting it in the GW timeline… it's somewhere before Endless Waltz and after the beginning of the show. (Insert sheepish laugh here.) I'm sure that there is a lull in the fighting at some point and so, that is when this story takes place. Yeah. A yearlong lull. Please suspend your disbelief for me.

Anyway, on with the story.

* * *

'**Wielder **(noun)

'Although an archaic term, wielders are perhaps one of the worst subliminal fears of witches and wizards today. They are said to have the ability to control Cold Iron _(see Cold Iron)_ and negate most forms of magic, but there is no official record of wielders having existed. The legend originated in Cairo, Egypt, though the date is unknown…_' The Wizards' Dictionary_

'I can't lie to her. She has purple eyes.'

– _The Wizards' Urban Dictionary_

'**The Seven Wielders, defeated, waited for their time. They tried to regain their lost glory every storm. They would place a piece of pure iron on a marble alter, in hopes that lightning would strike and Cold Iron would be formed, allowing them to become great once again…'**_ – The Devil's Bone, the Story of the Wielders_

* * *

The day that began what Duo would later call The Magic Land Adventure was hot, humid and sticky. The sun pulsed down on his back as Duo tinkered with a small can, twisting the wires around one another. In the pool, Trowa completed another lap and paused for breath. He squinted up at the rapidly darkening sky.

"It's going to rain," he said, as he pulled himself out of the water. "Are you coming in?"

"Not until I finish this," Duo replied. He pulled out a screw from his pocket and attempted to shove it in. "Otherwise I'm gonna have to move all my shit back inside." A rather impressive display of metal scraps and tools was littered around the braided boy. "I'm going to get this pulse bomb working even if it means me staying out here and getting hit by lightning."

"Suit yourself," Trowa said. He went inside to join Quatre, who was quietly reading in the living room.

Duo sighed and leant back in his sun chair, placing his half completed bomb on the ground. He could feel the water and charge in the air collecting. _'It's about time too,' _he thought, closing his eyes. The humidity had been building for days, until it felt like he was drowning every time he breathed in. It didn't help that missions had stopped while negotiations were taking place. The five boys were stuck in one of the Winners' large estates and, though the break was welcome, they were slowly going crazy with boredom in the static situation.

'_I guess it's the calm before the storm.'_ Duo chuckled at his lame reference to both the political situation and the weather but then sighed again when he felt the first drop of warm rain prick his forehead. _'Oh man. Thank you God." _He opened his eyes…

And jerked back in his seat, his heart leaping into his throat, his eyes impossibly wide. "Holy _sh_ – guys! GUYS!"

A globe, about half a meter in diameter, of lightning was hovering over the pool, small forks of magnesium-white leaping away from its surface. It crackled wickedly. Duo could even smell the burnt ozone and chlorine. Within milliseconds its image had burned itself into his eyes and large multicoloured patches danced across Duo's vision. It wasn't moving, but it looked very, very lethal.

Ball lightning. Duo had heard of it before, but had never expected to see one. Apparently they were extremely rare and reasons for their appearances hadn't been found yet. In most cases they were harmless, passing through glass and bricks and then disappearing without damaging anything. In rare circumstances, they could blow up a house.

This one looked like one of those.

Duo wanted to get back into the house as fast as possible to watch the amazing phenomenon from a safe distance. But as soon as he stood up, the ball twitched towards him. Duo froze. He was sure that even his heart had stopped for a second.

He moved again. The ball moved with him.

Was it attracted to movement? Having that thing touch him, especially now since it was raining and he was wet, was a really frightening idea. "GUYS! A LITTLE HELP HERE?" he hollered.

He heard a window clatter open. "What the hell are you yelling about-" Even from there, Duo could hear Wufei's sharp intake of breath. "Maxwell! What the hell did you do?"

In any other situation, Duo would have found it funny how Wufei automatically assumed that it was his fault. "Nothing! It just appeared! And it's going to fry me if I run!"

"Don't move Duo! Just wait for it to disappear." Quatre shouted. "I've heard that they usually go within minutes!" That was easy for him to say from the safety of the big strong house.

Duo did appreciate how awe-inspiring this was. He truly did. There were probably hundreds of people who would have loved to be so close to this…ball of fiery death. But Duo really wasn't one of them. He felt like he couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow in case the minute shifting of his muscles would aggravate the ball lightning further.

He could make a run for it, but there was nowhere that was truly safe from that thing. And it might follow him inside. The idea of him running around in circles with it chasing after him was only darkly amusing for a moment. So Duo was content to wait it out, to stay stock still until it fizzled away, or whatever they're supposed to do.

But then it started to move slowly towards him. So slowly, that Duo could pretend that it wasn't moving at all. But pretending didn't help matters at all.

'_Aw shit,' _Duo thought, his hand tightening around the assortment of nails in his pocket, trying to think clearly. Should he just side-step it? It was way too close to throw something at it; a resulting explosion could kill him. Maybe he could throw something and the lightning would go after that instead.

The incomplete pulse bomb lay right by his feet. It was of substantial weight and could go far if Duo chucked it as hard as he could. The wires could even act as a chain if he wanted to whirl it around his head a couple of times to increase distance.

It was risky. But the lightning ball was getting ever closer. It was bomb that could go off if it came into contact with his skin. Duo looked frantically around for more inspiration.

The ball accelerated slightly.

Okay, the hammer throw plan it was. If that didn't work, Duo would run. And hide. Two things he was very good at. He took a shaky breath, held it, and inch by inch, he bent down. His squinted eyes never left the ball, even when Duo was nearly blinded by its supernova intensity.

After what felt like an age, his fingertips grazed the bomb. He grasped it along with a few pebbles in his hand. _'Good! Now I just have to stand up…' _It took another age to straighten his back. It was raining properly now, drenching his clothes and hair. He felt heavy, the weight of rain and panic pulling him down. Would he be able to run in this? He could feel the heat of the lightning even though he still stood several feet away. The sizzle and steam of evaporating rain was hardly comforting.

Cautiously, he lightly flicked a pebble to the right of the ball. The ball seemed to shudder towards it. _'So it _is_ attracted to movement. Okay. I can do this.' _

His heart was overheating, pulse and rain filling his senses. He could vaguely hear Wufei and Quatre shouting something but wasn't able to make out any words. His skin was numb from the onslaught of rain.

He tensed, muscles straining, almost twitching with anticipation. In a moment between heartbeats, he flew into motion. He swung the can above his head, once, twice, and the ball raced towards him. He released the wires and the incomplete bomb sailed high above them.

For a moment, his plan worked. The ball followed the bomb in its sharp ascent but, like a dog, quickly lost interest in the proverbial stick and turned back to Duo….

…who was running as fast as his legs could carry him. His mind was racing. There was a bunker twenty meters away. Could he go there? There was a jeep to his side. Cars were protected against lightning, weren't they? He just needed to get away, get away, get away….

He wasn't able to find out whether cars were safe, or if he would have been able to make it to the bunker. Heat suddenly overwhelmed him. He couldn't hear anything other than crackling; one thousand birds screaming in his ears. The burnt-white ball engulfed him. It slammed into his back, knocking him over.

Duo screamed, his body convulsing and writhing on the ground. Every nerve was on fire. Liquid flame raced through his veins. A hot coppery taste filled his mouth as he bit down automatically on his tongue. He couldn't think. Even behind his closed eyes all he could see was blinding white.

He passed out before Wufei and Quatre reached him.

And clutched in his hand, what was once a small collection of iron nails, was now a cold metal ball.

* * *

Professor Trelawny suddenly went rigid in her armchair. Her teacup fell to the heavily carpeted floor.

Professor Dumbledore started awake from having slipped into a doze, as the mystic had been rambling about tealeaves. He looked up from his own teacup. "Is something the matter Sybill?" He recognized her demeanor, having witnessed it sixteen years ago.

Her wide, milky eyes turned to him, unseeing. Professor Dumbledore calmly placed his teacup on to the saucer with a quiet _chink_. "Yes?"

She opened her mouth and her spirit-thick voice swelled and filled the room. "_A Wielder has been born of lightning. The fates recast. The Dark Lord, his Downfall and Thunder's Child are intertwined…_

…_Violet and Cold are his signs."_

As the last words bubbled from her lips, she rocked and slumped in her chair.

The only sounds in the stuffy room were her heavy breathing and the dull roar of the fire in the background. Professor Trelawny shook herself and blinked at Professor Dumbledore, who was gazing at her quietly, intently. "Is something the matter Headmaster?" she asked, echoing his own question.

"No, everything's quite alright Sybill." Professor Dumbledore nodded, turning this new development around in his head. '_The fates recast…' _This could change everything.

Professor Trelawny didn't look convinced. "But I can feel a large gathering of spirits right by us," she protested. "Did something occur or-"

"Nothing of the sort," he interrupted. He gestured at the ground. "You just spilt your tea, that's all."

Sybill looked down. "Oh!" She tutted. "Silly me. I Saw that yesterday but I forgot not to drink tea today." She retrieved the fallen cup and turned it over. Peering inside, she chuckled thinly. "Well, would you look at that?" She pointed a bony finger into the cup. A couple specks of tealeaves remained at the bottom and formed a vague shape. "Do you know what this means?"

Professor Dumbledore honestly didn't have a clue. "I'm afraid not Sybill."

"The Wind of Change. Something big is beginning, the ball will start rolling." She raised a penciled eyebrow. "You should be more worried Headmaster. This can be serious."

"I know, I know." He knew exactly. He will, after all, be the one to push said ball. He just hoped that this child of thunder and Harry would be able to control it on the way down.

And oblivious to the winds of change around him, Harry Potter slept soundly in Gryffindor tower. A blizzard bombarded Hogwarts, making the windows rattle and the suits of armour shiver and clank. It was nearly Christmas.

The perfect time for an otherworldly arrival.

* * *

Duo woke up and found that he couldn't move. It felt like there was a marching band in his head, his skull expanding and contracting with every beat. _'Owww. What the hell did I do last night?' _Some weird gunk glued his eyelids closed. _'I'm dyyyinnggg.' _A garbled groan escaped his cracking lips, his tongue heavy and swollen in his mouth.

"Duo? Oh, he's awake! He's awake!"

Quatre sounded tired and frantic. Duo tried to wet his lips. "Qua…Qua…" He breathed deep, trying to get his lungs to work again. His eyes still refused to open.

"Calm down Duo. Dr. Po's on her way." A damp cloth was pressed against his mouth and Duo sucked the liquid in greedily. The water freed his throat. "Thank Allah you're awake."

There were only vague recollections of his last time conscious. Heat and light and a high shrieking sound were all he could remember. Oh and the pain. He definitely remembered the pain. "Qua' wha' happened?"

The heavy sound of boots thundering up the stairs assaulted Duo's ears. The door clattered open and there was a pressure at his side. A female voice. "Duo, can you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"Can you open your eyes?"

That would be a negative. "Can't. Stuck."

The cloth moved to his eyelids, wiping the stickiness away. Duo slowly opened his eyes and then immediately closed them again.

"Too bright," he mumbled thickly. He felt Sally's grip on his leg relax.

"At least you're not blind," she said.

"And not dead," Wufei added. "You have no idea how lucky you are, Maxwell. Most people would have died after being electrocuted like that."

Oh yeah. The big flaming ball of death. How could he have forgotten?

Duo offered a weak smile. "Well, wha' can I say? Shinigami's luck." He coughed and then gasped at the burning in his stomach. Calming down and attempting to open his eyes again, he asked, "Wha's the damage?" He knew very well that he was probably really, really badly burnt. Maybe even disfigured or paralyzed. He couldn't feel his hands at all.

Luckily, Sally answered before Duo's realisation could hit him properly. "Amazingly, very little." There was a rustle of paper. "Second degree burns mostly on your back, your large toenails were fried, a third degree burn on your palm. We'll have to check your motor control later to make sure everything's working properly. The burn on your hand is going to leave some scarring and the some of the nerves there are destroyed, but it's healing nicely."

"My hand?"

"You were holding this." The blurry figure that was Wufei placed something in Duo's unharmed hand. Duo still couldn't see clearly enough to make out what it was. It was cold, heavy, round, about the size of a ring. It was still small enough to flick into Wufei's eye if he felt like it. Or if he could see.

"This is?"

"You tell us fool," Wufei griped.

"The hell am I supposed to know?" Duo felt around for the bedside table and dropped it there. "Wha'ever. I'm tired of you guys already." Duo gingerly turned over, careful not to shift the bandages around his chest. "I'm gonna sleep."

"Make sure you drink something. There's water next to you." Duo could hear the smile in her words. "You're getting lippy again, so there's probably no problem with your voice. Just shout if you need something." Sally wiped his forehead with the cloth and patted his head fondly before she left, the _clunk _of her boots fading away. The soft clicks of Quatre's loafers and whispers of Wufei's plimsoles followed.

"Sleep well Duo."

"Later Maxwell."

The door shut. Silence fell, save for the breathing of two boys. "Wha's up Hee-chan?" Duo asked without opening his eyes. The bed dipped slightly as Heero sat down. He was quiet for a moment. His hand found the end of Duo's braid, rubbing his thumb against the tail absentmindedly.

"We had to cut parts of your hair." Heero told him. "Some of the lock picks you hid in there had melted into your braid."

"Well i's a good thing-" Duo paused and then swallowed, trying not to mangle his words. "They weren't by my scalp, otherwise I'd really have trouble getting through metal detectors."

When there was no response**,** Duo frowned. "Heer-"

"You have no idea," Heero interrupted, his voice sounding strained. "How scared I was." "You were on the ground, smoke coming off your body_. _Your shoes had been blown off and it looked like- and you weren't moving afterwards and your heart…."

He stopped and sucked in a rattling breath. By this point, Duo had opened his eyes, looking at Heero intently. He had never seen the usually stoic brunette like this, so unnerved and open. His pulse jumped in his chest.

Heero's head dipped. "Three days Duo," he said in a quiet voice. "We didn't know if you were brain damaged or paralyzed or worse."

Duo laughed weakly. "Well I wouldn't change much if I was brain damaged so-."

"Don't!" Heero said sharply, grip tightening on the braid. "This… this is serious. Don't… don't do that."

A brief pause.

"Yea'. Yeah I know. Thanks."

Heero stood. "I'll let you sleep now. If you need anything-"

"I'll holler. Don't worry."

Heero gave a microscopic nod and walked out. And even in Duo's blurry vision, he could see the last heartfelt look Heero directed at him before he disappeared down the hall. It made him smile.

After being looked at carefully by Sally, Duo was hobbling about the next afternoon. She had tested every limb, every joint and had shaken her head in disbelief. "You are extremely lucky Mr. Maxwell. The chances of you coming out of that blast close to unharmed were nearly zero."

He was just a bit stiff. Even his burnt hand wasn't giving him any trouble. After unwrapping the bandages just to peek at the scar, it hadn't hurt or itched. Duo was pleased to see a pretty cool circular mark, a little bigger than the marble. It was an angry red, surrounded by a thin ring of raw pink. Sally assured him that it'd fade somewhat, but would probably still be numb for a while.

Duo had taken to carrying the odd little marble around with him, as a toy to fiddle with in his pocket whenever there was a sudden lull in conversation or if he was alone. Not that he was, as the others had taken it upon themselves to mother him. Even Wufei, _Wufei_, was offering to change his bandages every two damn minutes.

"Wuffers, I'm _fine_. Seriously! Jeez, what's with everyone following me?"

"You'd do the same for me."

"Yeah, but that would be to bug you. You actually mean it!"

Wufei quirked a slender eyebrow. "Maxwell, if a comrade was hit by lightning, wouldn't you want to look after them?"

"I'm drowning in TLC though." Duo did feel touched by their concern, but was still irritated. "Can't a guy have some space?"

"Apparently not."

Quatre's voice floated up the stairs. "Is everything okay Duo?" That pushed it a little. That had been the fourth time Quatre had asked.

"I'm FINE!" Duo snapped back. He turned on his heel and made a less than graceful exit into his room, barely restraining himself from slamming the door. He flopped onto the bed, wincing when his back twinged. He laid a hand over his eyes, immediately regretting having snarled at Quatre.

'_What's wrong with me? Why am I so bitchy right now?' _He could be volatile at times, but was generally good-natured. He couldn't remember ever yelling like that at Quatre, who was just concerned.

The thought was only fleeting, as his palm suddenly burned, something hot and thick pressing into his skin. He hissed and clutched at his hand, squeezing it hard. Almost as soon as it started, the pain passed. Duo, sweating and shaking, tore open the bandages, expecting to find it bleeding or glass embedded in it or something.

But there was nothing. It looked exactly the same. Duo clenched his fist experimentally. It was numb again. _'That was really weird… okay I **so** have to get that checked out by the doc.' _But first he'd apologise to Quatre. And then wheedle Wufei into playing video games with him or something.

* * *

Harry was looking forward to the Christmas holidays. He was looking forward to seeing Sirius, Remus, the Weasleys, heck he was looking forward to degnoming the garden. He loved Hogwarts, but desperately needed a break from the school. Fifth year homework was no joke and the endless feet essays, the endless charms and transfiguration studies and the endless Quidditch practices in hellish weather were taking their toll on him.

That wasn't it either. He was still recovering from the traumatic events of the Triwizard Tournament. He saw Cedric in the faces of every Hufflepuff he came across. They still saw a murderer and liar in his. The Daily Prophet refused to leave him alone, especially after his hearing that summer, but at least the jeering messages left by Slytherins had died down a little.

So when Professor Dumbledore had called him up to his office on the day before the end of term, he was in a vaguely good mood. Freedom was less than twenty-four hours away. He wouldn't have to look at Malfoy's pointy face for another three weeks. He would still have to look at Snape's, but that was only a small drawback.

"Ah, Harry! Awful weather today isn't it?"

It was. Usually at this time of year, snow would be falling in fluffy clumps. But outside, the sky was a thick sheet of metal and lightning and thunder rolled above them.

Dumbledore waved him in. "Sit, sit. Lemon drop?"

Harry declined as usual. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"Yes." Professor Dumbledore clasped his hands and leant over his desk, eyes bright but a frown had settled on his face. "Now, I do realise that you were planning on returning to the Burrow for Christmas, but-."

Dumbledore's use of past tense made Harry's chest tighten. "No," Harry said immediately. He didn't care if there was a Death Eaters horde on the Burrow doorstep. He was going back.

Professor Dumbledore held his hands up. "Please listen first, Harry." Harry looked down, but didn't leave. "An overseas student will be arriving tomorrow and I need someone to stay here with him."

That, was perhaps the single most stupid thing Harry had ever heard. He also hated the new student already.

"Why me? Why not put him with a family? Isn't this the sort of job for a prefect?"

"So you'd have Miss Granger or Mr. Weasley stay here instead?"

"What? No!"

"Then it's settled. You'll be staying here for the holiday."

Harry could feel his face heating up. This was beyond unfair. He felt sick at the idea of being forced to stay at Hogwarts while everyone else went home to their family. It would have been his first _proper _family Christmas with Sirius. Harry hadn't forgotten about his imprisonment at the Dursleys that summer and his fury at being separated from his friends, again, was hotter than ever. And to think that Dumbledore had the cheek to try keeping Harry 'safe' after the Dementors attacked Little Whinging…. His fist clenched and he had to bite down on his tongue to keep hurtful things from escaping.

"Harry. Look at me."

He had to force himself to look at the old man. "Yes, _Professor_?" he snapped. Dumbledore, to his credit, winced slightly and hung his head.

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding genuinely regretful. "But this student… is special. He'll be key in the battle against Voldemort."

That piqued Harry's interest and calmed him down slightly, but he was still fuming. "So?" he asked stubbornly.

"I don't know that much about him, but we may have to give him a speed course in magic."

"But who is he?"

Dumbledore smiled and tapped his long nose. "That is a secret," he said. "Now, off you trot. I've already notified Grimmauld Place-"

"Does Sirius know?" Harry interrupted.

Dumbledore blanched. "No, not yet. But the others know that you'll be staying here. I'll also be here over Christmas, as will the other teachers. Use this time wisely!"

And that was the end of the conversation. Harry stood and couldn't help but slam the door behind him. He smiled with satisfaction when a high pitched crash followed, probably one of Dumbledore's silver… things. _'I hope it was expensive,' _he thought dully.

He didn't want to talk to Ron or Hermione. They would be sympathetic, but they weren't the ones who were stuck there. What Harry really wanted was to rant about the headmaster with Sirius, who would no doubt have agreed with him. _'Sirius better give the him hell when he finds out.'_

The thought cheered him up a little, but he soured again when he realised he would have to unpack his trunk.

Back in his office, Dumbledore was receiving a heavy berating from Fawkes in the form of small jets of fire in his beard. "I know Fawkes," he sighed after patting out the last tongue of flame. "But there was nothing else. I need Harry to make friends and work together with the wielder. It can't wait. Now would be the best time to introduce the wielder to our community, with most of the students out of Hogwarts." The bird squawked. "I don't like the idea of kidnapping him either, but it's necessary." His eyes hardened. "Have you found him yet?"

The bird moved its head up and down. His target: a war torn world, a sleeping brunette and a gleaming metal ball.

Dumbledore leant back in his chair, spindly fingers intertwining under his chin. He came to a decision. "You leave tomorrow."

* * *

The next day came accompanied by heated nightmares of metal and fire. Duo woke up, his damp clothes cold and sticky against his heaving chest. His hand was acting up again, the pain having spread slightly to his fingers. He gritted his teeth until it faded, letting out an explosive sigh when it finally did.

It got worse throughout the day. He fidgeted, moving from room to room restlessly. He thought he heard voices when he knew no one was there and his sentences were clumsy, words tripping over each other when he tried to talk to someone.

"I feel weird," he finally announced that evening. "Seriously," he added when seeing the raised eyebrows around the dinner table.

"Don't you always feel weird, Maxwell?" Wufei asked sincerely. Duo just looked at him, dark circles under his eyes stark against his pale skin. He couldn't even think of a smart-ass answer. He merely groaned and let his head fall onto the table.

Quatre coughed uncomfortably. "Duo's right," the blond said, his knuckles grazing against his chest. "The atmosphere feels different in here. I feel like someone's watching us. Well, watching Duo." He looked at each pilot in turn, Duo still facedown on the table. "Don't any of you feel anything?"

"It could be the hot weather," Trowa said suddenly. Duo snorted and sat up straight again, showing what he thought of that idea.

"I don't get grumpy and worried and moody just because it is _hot,_" Duo said dismissively. "Really, Trowa, I'm insulted. I may look like a girl, but I'm not one."

Quatre smiled and shook his head. "No, that's not it." He looked at Duo, cupping his chin thoughtfully. _Something_ was radiating off the braided boy in waves. He had a very uncomfortable look on his face and rarely present worry lines were visible on his brow.

Heero also noticed the pained expression. "Whatever it is, I don't like it," he said seriously. "I'll call Dr. Po."

"I don't think a doctor can fix this. I think that the lightning just messed with my head a little. Thanks for caring though," the braided boy replied, throwing a thankful look in Heero's direction. Heero held his gaze firmly.

The tender moment was spoiled as Duo suddenly hissed and gripped his hand. He inhaled sharply and leaned forward, face contorting.

Heero stood abruptly, knocking his chair over in the process, and rushed to Duo's side. Quatre grabbed Duo's shoulder in concern, but immediately let go with a yelp. The blond was clutching his own hand.

Heero forced Duo's fist open and ordered Wufei to get the doctor while Trowa inspected Quatre's hand for injury.

"Breathe, Duo! Breathe!" Heero said, urgency in his voice. "Where is it hurting?"

"It'll… ah… it'll pass," Duo ground out. And it did, after a moment. Duo slumped in his chair, beads of sweat following the contour of his forehead.

"What was that, Duo?" Quatre asked shakily, his eyes watering from the brief intensity of pain collected in his own palm.

"Nothing, it was-."

"It wasn't 'nothing'. There's obviously something wrong with that burn."

"Hee-chan! It's fine!"

"If Winner could feel it then it's not a normal injury." Heero glanced at Quatre, who nodded back at him.

"Ugh you guys just don't quit!" Duo stood up, turning around so fast that his braid whipped out behind him. He was _fine_! The pain would go, it would heal. It was annoying as hell but he didn't want everyone clucking over him.

"Duo!" Heero followed him.

He stormed upstairs, Heero right by his heels. Duo wrenched the door open. "Why won't you guys leave me… uh."

For the second time in five days, Duo came face to face with the unexpected.

A bird, a magnificent bird, was perched on the footrest of Duo's bed. It was sunset-red with a full breast of yellow and orange and gold. Its tail, even richer in colour, was pooled on the bedspread. Intelligent black eyes regarded them and it cocked its head to the side. The room was dark, almost ominously so, but bird seemed to have a light of its own.

"Heero," he said weakly. "Why is there a giant bird on my bed?"

Heero had his gun out and loaded. "That's not a normal bird," he said, watching it warily.

"Put the gun away!" Duo snapped, still irate.

The bird suddenly trilled and warmth sparked in Duo's stomach and Heero's gun wavered. At the same time, his scar flared but Duo swallowed the gasp and clenched his teeth instead. Heero didn't notice.

"I don't think it's going to hurt us," Duo said tightly through his pain, approaching the bird slowly. It didn't move and just followed him with its eyes.

"Duo," Heero said tightly. "Don't touch it. Just open the window. It might fly out by itself." An obvious question finally occurred to Heero. "How did it get in here?"

Duo shrugged. "Beats me." After the initial shock had faded, Duo was starting to get a little suspicious too. Where did it come from? Even if using a humongous bird was hardly OZ's style, his gun still appeared in his hands.

Moving slowly, as to not scare it, he crossed the room and opened the window. The sky was still an angry gray and a sudden wind caused the gauze curtains to fly back. Duo repressed a shudder as thunder growled and was instantly, painfully reminded of the lightning.

The bird crooned and suddenly stretched. With one massive sweep of its wings it lifted itself off the footrest and landed on Duo, a polished foot on each shoulder. Duo staggered for a brief moment with the sudden weight. His palm tingled.

Instantly, Heero had his gun trained on its head. "Try force it out," he said, his eyes narrowed. "If it tries something-."

"It's fine. I'd deal with it first. Come on, you giant chicken, out you go." Duo tilted his torso, trying to persuade the bird to hop off but it just clung tighter.

It stretched to its full height, head easily brushing the ceiling, and raised its wings; a fanfare of reds and golds. It seemed like it wanted to take off with Duo in its grasp. Duo laughed. "Nice try but I'm too heavy for-."

It opened its beak and sang. It flashed a brilliant white, momentarily blinding them both for a moment Duo reached up for the bird's neck, ready to pull it down and break it. But the bird suddenly pulled all its weight back and Duo's thighs met the ledge of the window. Both bird and human toppled over, and fell.

"DUO!" Heero roared, launching himself forward. He reached the window just in time to meet Duo's terrified eyes. Heero was about to hurl himself out the window after the braided boy but a ball of flame engulfed the pair, halfway to the ground. The wave of heat swept past the window, making Heero screw his eyes shut. Heero screamed Duo's name. _'Don't let him be dead don't let him be dead.'_

The fireball dropped to the ground and raged. And died. Then Duo's bedroom was thrown into darkness and only the eerie half-light of the clouds remained.

Heero clambered out of the window and clumsily navigated his way down. He searched frantically for any sign of his friend, rubbing the ground beneath him with his hands. There had to be some sign somewhere.

Birds don't burst into flame.

People don't just disappear.

"Heero?"

Heero turned slowly and knew that the shocked expression on the faces of the other pilots was also on his own.

"We heard screaming and saw – what happened– the bird? Where-?" Quatre was trembling, overwhelmed by everything. "I don't…." He buried his face in his hands. "I can't feel him. Oh Allah, I can't feel him. My Space Heart…" Quatre gave a sob, obviously hurting. "He's gone."

Heero wiped the dust and ash off his face with a burning, clammy hand. Hysteria, something he wasn't familiar with, threatened to build up inside him.

Finally, Wufei voiced the question, which had been hanging over them like a poisonous gas. "Where did he go?"

* * *

Duo was able to force his eyes open and he found himself travelling along a giant tunnel of flame. Images of people, buildings, cities, planets dissipated like mirages. Entire galaxies danced by, filled with lights and plasma. The bird's talons dug into his shoulders like red-hot pokers.

The tunnel flickered and the bird cried out. Its grip on Duo loosened. Looking down, Duo could see his feet hanging perilously over what looked like a very painful fire pit. _'You are SO not letting me go,' _Duo thought, panicking. He clung on tightly to the bird's leg. He wanted as much distance between him and the smouldering ground as possible.

After an eternity, they emerged and everything slid into sharp focus for a second before blurring. Cool air soothed his skin. The bird released its hold and Duo fell onto his hands and knees. His stomach swirled and his head pounded.

He looked up, struggling not to empty the contents of his stomach onto the carpeted floor. He was in a large, old-fashioned office, but the weirdest office he had ever seen. He was also alone.

That was when the voices began, a grating buzzing in his head.

Somehow, Duo knew that it was only in his head; no earthly creature could have created such a hideous, jarring sound. It was like a constant murmured argument in his mind, echoing off the insides of his skull. '_There are voices in my head,' _Duo thought dazedly. He had been kidnapped by a firebird, flown past a nebula, dropped in a weird room and now he was hearing things._'There are fucking voices in my head.' _This had to be a dream.

The voices, which at first had been hesitant, searching, suddenly multiplied and became bigger, louder, overwhelming. Foreign words jumbled together and created a weird symphony of noise. They swelled to a roar and Duo couldn't even hear his own heart pounding in his ears. He clutched at his head. "Shut up, shut up," he hissed. Finally, his mind decided it couldn't take its new inhabitants. His body shut down, switching off all nerves, all conscious thought, all sensation. His eyes slid closed and he collapsed from the strain of the journey and the stress. The thunder continued to roll outside.

_Everything _hurt. Again. Duo was fast getting tired of having his body treated like trash due to be incinerated. At least this time Duo could move and think relatively clearly, although his head was still a bit foggy. '_Ten seconds of studying your surroundings could save your life. Just don't open your mouth until those ten seconds are over,' _Heero's voice reminded him. The first thing Duo saw was a white ceiling. _'Waking up to a white ceiling in a weird bed can only mean one thing.' _He must be in an infirmary once again, although the smell of anaesthetic and hum of machinery were missing. An herbal scent filled the room instead. _'I can't even last two weeks without finding my way into hospital.' _Duo grimaced. _'Even if I don't have a clue where I am.'_

White curtains were drawn around his bed. He couldn't hear any voices or movement so he gathered it was safe to gently move it to one side. He peeked through and promptly decided that the room was the most old-fashioned hospital wing he had ever seen, which was something, considering all the places he had visited. There didn't seem to be anyone else around.

What had happened? Duo could remember a giant bird and fire tunnel and then waking up here. Had he been kidnapped? This didn't look remotely like any Alliance base he had seen. It just looked like a really trippy nightmare.

A whisper skimmed over the surface of his consciousness, but he batted it away. When he got back home, he was going to have serious chats with Dr. Po and force her to psychoanalyse him.

This was all too weird. Duo needed to get out of here before anything could get anymore whack. He checked his arsenal before moving. He had a handgun, half a dozen clips of ammunition, maybe a knife in his shoes, which were luckily at the foot the bed. Awfully dumb of his kidnappers to leave him armed, he mused. The lock picks were still in place as well. He could make small bombs out of just about anything if he needed to, so there was that too. Duo tested his joints tentatively and, when nothing hurt too much, hopped out of bed, slipped on his boots and left.

Slowly opening the massive wooden door, the sight of hundreds of black clad kids greeted him. They were moving in one general direction, most carrying bags and talking excitedly. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice him, but Duo realised that he'd need camouflage before he went out there. He was still in his trademark black jumpsuit but he figured he's need something that flapped more. He snagged a black robe that was hanging by the door, hid his tell-tale braid down the back and stepped into the throng of people, moving along with the current.

Duo didn't really know what to think. _'An exclusive community for Goths? Nah.' _Maybe this was some sort of weird cult.

Two boys, of about fourteen, were chatting enthusiastically in front of him. "We're going to portkey to Julian's place in Manchester. He says that they have a Quidditch pitch we can use." "Brilliant! I've been wanting to try out my Nimbus."

'_Are they speaking in some sort of code?' _Duo thought. They had mentioned a British city and spoken with an odd, extremely old-fashioned British accent. That pointed out that he was most probably in Britain. That was weird. It was impossible to get from Quatre's safehouse in the J.A.P area to Europe that quickly. He didn't feel like he was out for that long. There hadn't been any signs of a drug-induced stupor when he woke up. Duo wracked his brain for ideas of what to do next. Howard had friends in Dover he could perhaps contact to help him get out of this mess.

There was faint shriek from the infirmary. Someone must have realised that he was missing. A stout woman ran out and looked frantically at the torrent of kids in front of her. Duo ducked his head slightly and increased his pace, pretending that he knew exactly where he was going. _'I need to get out of here,' _he thought, worried when the woman ran in the opposite direction. She was going to raise the alarm and soon everyone will be looking out for him.

Information and escape were priority. Phones were probably monitored. The place looked huge, so there were probably loads of exits he could use.

Duo broke away from the main stream of people. He ducked into a slightly emptier corridor and broke into a run, keeping close to the wall. The architectural style and suits of armour suggested that he was in a castle, of all places. If it was a castle, then there were probably towers from which he would be able to –

Did that painting just _move_?

Gaping over his shoulder at the freaky thing, Duo didn't see someone turn the corner straight into his path. "Oof!" He collided into the boy, falling on top of him in a heap.

Duo knew he should get up and keep running, but he reassessed the situation. He could get his answers now instead. He slid the knife out of his boot.

Interrogation it was then.

* * *

Harry's already crap day was instantly made worse when someone crashed into him, causing the both of them to fall. His glasses clattered on to the ground. "Ow." Harry winced as he tried to push himself up. His effort was cut short when he was yanked up by the front of his robes and shoved through a door. His hand went straight to his wand, but he was forced against a wall before he could defend himself.

The cold edge of metal kissed his neck.

Harry froze, not even blinking. He didn't need his glasses to be able to tell what exactly was against his skin.

"Do anything and you'll be breathing out of a hole in your neck," the blurry figure said quietly, pressing the knife harder for emphasis. The voice was thickly American, unfamiliar. "Where am I?"

'_How could someone be here and not know it?' _Harry thought, trying to shift his wand out of his pocket without his attacker noticing.

A hand grabbed his wrist. "Listen buddy, I thought I warned you already. Now where am I?" The knife tapped against the rapid pulse in his neck. "Time's-a-ticking."

"Hogwarts," Harry ground out. Where was everyone? Surely there were people in the corridor. Why didn't anyone see them?

The boy snorted. "Yeah right. The truth please, buster."

Harry glared at him. "I'm not joking!"

"Chyeah, and I'm Relena Peacecraft."

"And I'm supposed to know who that is?"

The knife reminded him of its presence. "Enough bantering already. What's the quickest way out of here? What's the nearest town?"

"Oh!" a new voice said. "Am I interrupting something?"

Harry's attacker whipped around and there was a series of deafening bangs. The pressure on Harry's chest lifted and he was able to shove the guy off him and shout "Expelliarmus!" at the same time.

The knife hurtled towards him, handle-first, and into his hand. Harry still couldn't see very well, but could make out the silvery form of Nearly Headless Nick. _'Thank Merlin,' _Harry thought. "Get a teacher quickly!" he yelled, pointing his wand at the boy. "He's dangerous!" The ghost disappeared.

The boy stood stock still for a moment. "Wait, a teache-?" but was interrupted when shouts suddenly became audible. He turned and legged it out of the classroom.

"No you don't," Harry snarled, running out after him and luckily finding his glasses on the ground. Harry caught a quick glimpse of the boy shoot around the corner and then heard a yelp of surprise. It was then followed by the sound of Peeves cackling and a string of explosions.

The boy staggered back into view, covered in white chalk, his arms in front of his face. He spun around. And instantly ran face-first into Hagrid, who wrapped his giant hands around the boy and pinned his arms to his sides.

Hagrid lifted him up into the air. The boy was too shocked to do anything other than say, "Holllly shit." He started to kick uselessly. "Let me go, you… really big man," he demanded, wriggling in the hands of the half giant. His gun had dropped to the floor.

"No," Hagrid said, as if scolding a puppy. "Professor, I got 'im!"

Now that Harry had his glasses back on, he could properly look at the boy. To his surprise, he was about the same age as Harry was. Perhaps even younger; his heart shaped face had the fullness of adolescence and his large eyes didn't look like they belonged to a killer.

Harry picked the gun up gingerly, not really knowing how to handle it. A muggle weapon. The boy was armed with muggle weapons and had freaked out when he saw Sir Nick. He didn't know who Hagrid was, which was impossible for a resident of Hogwarts. Harry put two and two together.

Professor Dumbledore finally appeared in a glory of green and orange robes.

"Professor, he's a muggle!" Harry said, pointing at the intruder.

"Hey! I'm not a muggle," the boy shouted back, sounding insulted. "Whatever that is," he added belatedly. He kicked half-heartedly. "You're not going to let me go, are you?"

"Not to worry Harry," Professor Dumbledore said, approaching Hagrid and the boy. The headmaster sounded infuriatingly relaxed. Harry had nearly been killed! "Everything's fine. Hagrid, could you put our new student down?"

"New student?" Harry and the boy said simultaneously. Hagrid dropped him and, curiously, winced and nursed his hands.

The boy landed lightly on his feet and crossed his arms impatiently. There was obviously no point in running anymore. "Alright, which one of you shits is going to explain to me what's going on?" he drawled, eyes still on the lookout for a chance to escape.

"That would be me," Dumbledore said, gesturing for Harry and the boy to follow him. "I'll explain everything in my office."

**End Chapter 1**

* * *

**AN:** Well, this is it. Thank you to my old readers for waiting and for adding me to your Author Subscription lists. Reverent thanks also go to **The Plot Bunny Whisperer **for reading through this, even when her Real Life is sort of important. Thanks also **Cappy **for serving as an inspiration to me for all these long years. Four years to be exact. (Look at me, I'm all grown up now.)

I'll be very grateful for reviews. I've written this partly for my own enjoyment, partly to get the six year old plot bunny to shut up and partly to get responses and feel appreciated. (So feed me please) Whether it's a "YAY DUO!" or a thought out, honest critique, I'd be over the moon with it. Although I think it's obvious which is preferred. If you want a response, please log in or leave your email address.

**Edit: **I've combined chapters one and two together because I felt that chapter one by itself was rather weak and not attention-grabbing enough by itself. So now it's super long. (Chapters are normally around the 3,000 - 5,000 word line, so an 8,000 word first chapter is pretty weird for me. 'Ey.)


	2. Chapter 2: Pretty Darn Trippy

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 2: Pretty Darn Trippy**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning**: 1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo)

* * *

The castle was trippy. Duo had to admit that it was pretty cool, with its super advanced holograms, mechanical moving stairs and floating… things. The costumes might have been a bit much but Duo was willing to forgive everyone's apparent lack of taste in clothing. Merlin's, as Duo had decided to call him, fashion blindness was mind blowing.

It was an amazing set up, but why would someone pour so much money into such a weird project? Was this 'Hogwarts' some sort of amusement park? A 'haunted' castle? The people around him looked and sounded amazingly authentic. Merlin looked like he had stepped out of a fantasy novel. Duo didn't think that people actually grew their beards that long anymore. The compassionate smile and his sharp blue eyes gave Duo an impression of grandfatherly wisdom. The park sponsors had found a very good actor.

From what Duo had heard, the park seemed based on a school of all things. Everyone had Professor tacked on to the front of their name, all the rooms they had passed looked suspiciously like classrooms and the big guy had called Merlin 'Headmaster' at one point. That meant that he had probably threatened a student. '_Whoops_.'

Now that Duo looked at his earlier-victim, the other kid did look very much like a student, other than the fact he was wearing a dress. Duo mentally listed the signs: glasses, a standard tie and embroidered emblem on his robe, a messenger bag, and messy bed-hair. It all pointed to student. The kid looked a bit nerdy but Duo knew that there was something weird about him. How had he managed to steal the knife right from Duo's hands back in the classroom?

Well whatever this place was, Duo gathered that the strange people he had met weren't going to hurt him yet. No one was armed or had acted aggressively towards him unprovoked. Duo hadn't seen any sign of security since he got here. No keypads, no cameras, no guards. In fact…

Duo started actively searching for any sign of technology. _'No outlets, no plugs, not even a light switch! The hell?'_ The sound of cars was curiously missing as well. They must have really good sound insulation and really, really good wiring.

The other kid, '_Harry,' _Duo remembered, walked slightly ahead of him, trying to sneak glances at him every so often. He was probably still a bit pissed off at Duo. Scratch the probably, he was pissed off. And Duo didn't blame him. Really.

"Hey, sorry about back there," Duo said, genuinely apologetic. "I panicked."

Harry stiffened as he realised that Duo was talking to him and laughed a tad nervously. "It's alright." Then he said quietly, more to himself, "Not the maddest thing to happen."

Maddest? Angry? He scratched his head. "But I'm not mad."

Harry's expression suggested he thought otherwise and was about to reply, but Merlin jumped into the conversation. "Harry means 'crazy' rather than 'angry'," he explained, smiling over his shoulder. "I see we have somewhat of a culture barrier."

'_No shit,' _Duo thought, scoffing inwardly. These guys live in the Middle Ages and the guy in that atrocity of an outfit sees that there's a culture barrier? _'Thanks Captain Obvious.'_

"As to what Harry was referring to before," Merlin continued. "The answer to that would be magic." He sounded serious too.

Duo blinked and then laughed when he realised that Merlin was just playing his part in this freaky set up. "Yeah I know that," Duo said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at Harry.

Harry must not have caught on because he looked confused. "You know?" Harry asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

Duo didn't know how to respond to that. Was Harry playing along too? Oddly, Duo's joke seemed to make Harry less suspicious. Harry shoulders weren't so tense and he allowed himself to walk closer to Duo.

But the braided boy didn't have time to think about that as he suddenly fell forward, his foot having encountered air instead of a step. He yelped and scrambled for purchase before the hole in the stairs could suck his leg in completely. How could he miss that? It became even worse when hole seemed to cling on to his leg. The millions of electronic portraits around them snickered. That was pretty cruel, programming the holograms to laugh whenever someone fell down. Genius, but cruel.

"This is embarrassing," he muttered as Harry helped him out. "You guys should really get that fixed before someone sues for breaking their neck."

Merlin chuckled. "It can be quite tricky to fix gaps in the stairs if they keep changing their position," he said, gesturing to the hole or lack thereof.

"Huh?" Duo looked back and just saw grey flagstone. He toed it tentatively. It was solid. "What in hell? Where did I-?" Okay this place was really starting to creep him out. Duo had been managing to find excuses for all the other creepy stuff but this was just getting ridiculous. "How did you do that?" he demanded.

Harry looked at him strangely. "Magic," he said, repeating Merlin's earlier explanation. "I thought you said you knew."

Duo decided to drop it for now. It wasn't important at this point. He could always find out later somehow. "So this place is _really _called Hogwarts?" he asked as they came to a stop in front of a hideous looking stone gargoyle.

Merlin nodded and then said, rather conversationally, to the statue, "Fizzing Whizzbees."

Duo stared at him. Okay, he could make a run for it _now _while his captors were talking to the architecture. There was a crunch and Duo gaped as the gargoyle inclined its head and stepped back, revealing a small archway leading into an even smaller room. Duo rushed to the gargoyle, running his hands over its surface, checking thoroughly for any switches or panels. The gargoyle snapped at his hand when he flicked at its teeth and Duo whipped his hand back with a barely restrained expletive.

With another infuriating chuckle, Merlin ushered him inside. "Stand here," he said, pushing him on to the stone spiral stairway. Duo had barely walked in when the floor began to shake and the stairs started to turn slowly, moving them upwards. When they reached a wooden door, the stairs shuddered and grinded to a stop. Merlin pushed the door open. "In we go," he said. "Welcome to my not-so-humble abode."

"You're telling me!" Duo said, walking inside and gazing around in wonder. It was the same, circular room that he had first arrived in, except now he had the chance to study it without voices flooding his brain. Portraits lined every wall, some talking to each other in soft voices and others napping. Small silver gadgets took up every inch of the space on little round tables. Some emitted little puffs of iridescent smoke into the air accompanied by low _pops_ and some hummed gently. It felt like the whole room was quietly alive; nothing stood still for a moment. There was a desk in the middle of the room, also full of delicate instruments. But even with all the books, papers and ornaments, Duo felt that something was missing. _'Where's the computer? The phone?' _

Merlin took his place behind his desk, sitting down. Duo took this as his cue to also take a seat in front of the table, accepting an offered lemon drop. He found it hard to establish eye contact with the headmaster, as so many things kept grabbing his attention. He kept looking upwards and smiling at the portraits, behind him, noting how far the door was, to the side, where he saw-

"You!" The bird regarded Duo with interest and opened his golden beak and chirruped. Duo wanted to throttle it. "You kidnapped me!"

Duo was about to leap out of his chair to kill the stupid turkey, but the old man stopped him. "Please, calm down. I'll explain Fawkes' role in a moment, but I believe that introductions are in order. I am Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts."

'_Funky name to match funky clothing.' _This had to be a joke. Dumbledore? Well to be honest, most people he knew had slightly unconventional names as well, so he shouldn't judge. But _Dumbledore_? Duo decided he liked it more than Merlin.

The newly identified Dumbledore gestured to Harry. "This Harry Potter, one of our fifth year students."

"Hullo," Harry said, waving somewhat awkwardly at Duo, to the braided boy's amusement.

They both looked at Duo expectantly.

"Where am I?" he asked instead.

Dumbledore frowned. "In Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry."

Duo's brain juttered to a halt at the sheer ridiculousness of that statement. When his brain remembered how to function, it decided that some skepticism was in order. He snorted. "Right. Wizardry. _Now_ everything makes sense," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Look Mr. Dumbledore, I don't know how long you want me to keep playing in your theme park but I seriously have somewhere to be right now. Now if you could just direct me to the nearest base, that would be great."

"I'm afraid I'm serious," Dumbledore said, leaning over his desk. He played the part of a principal very well, Duo noted. "I can understand why you are unconvinced. Perhaps a demonstration may help."

Duo tensed when the possibly and probably senile old man reached into his robes and drew out a slender stick. "A wand," Duo said flatly. "Okay, now you have to be kidding me." _'Merlin indeed.'_

Dumbledore merely smiled and said, "I think I'll clean up the mess Peeves made on your clothes, if that's alright." He flicked his wand in Duo's direction, who nearly threw himself out of the chair in case the stick was some sort of weird weapon.

The white powder that coated his shoulders and had refused Duo's earlier efforts at brushing it off suddenly lifted into the air. It swirled around in front of Duo's nose for a couple seconds before disappearing. Duo stared wide-eyed at where the mini snowstorm had been just a moment before. He looked at Dumbledore who looked back at him patiently.

"Again," Duo breathed, not daring to believe.

Dumbledore obliged. A silver pot on his desk morphed into a fat little bird. It hopped around and Duo gently picked it up, awed. Its song was tinny, like a musical box. But it was warm. It had a pulse.

Dumbledore waved his wand again and the bird suddenly had friends. The pot of candy sitting on the desk erupted into lemon-yellow butterflies, which fluttered around Duo, some even landing on his shoulders. Rolls of parchment unfurled and gathered into a fist-size wad of paper before turning into a tap-dancing rat. Even Harry had joined in the melee of magic and made the bird turn into an alarming shade of pink.

Naturally, Duo's mind scrabbled frantically for logical explanations. Maybe this room is fixed for this sort of thing. Maybe it's for amusing kids. Maybe they just want to screw with his mind. Maybe…

Maybe it was okay to believe. Despite the trait of suspicion that had been drilled into his head since he had been a kid, Duo found himself considering that perhaps there _was_ a mystical force that he, and apparently most of the human population had been kept ignorant of. If that was the case, he didn't blame these 'wizards' for hiding. _'In a giant castle,' _Duo thought afterwards with a little chuckle.

"Okay. Okay fine, let's say I believe you," Duo said, noting that there was still a little toomuch glee in his voice. The bird turned back into silverware, cold and heavy in Duo's hands, and the other objects settled back into their original forms and positions. "This is so very cool. What else can you guys do?"

Dumbledore held up a hand, calling for patience. "All in good time. Now a name would be nice. Mr…"

"Maxwell," Duo supplied happily, no longer under the impression that they were going to kill him. "Duo Maxwell, but just Duo please. You can only call me Maxwell if you're yelling."

Harry sniggered from the side and Dumbledore smiled kindly. "Very well. To put it bluntly, you are not in your own world anymore, as you've probably noticed. Right now, it is the winter of 1995, December the 20th. We are situated somewhere in the North of Scotland and - "

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Duo said suddenly, his eyes huge and his hands held out in front of him in a _STOP_ gesture. "You mean to say that… I'm… I'm in the past? 1995 A.D?" He looked at Harry to see if he could find some sign of a joke in his face, but Harry's green eyes were as wide as his own.

"1995 A.D yes, but in a different world. It's probably very similar to your own as Fawkes didn't have to travel very far to fetch you."

Fawkes must mean the bird. "1995? So there are no space colonies? No OZ? No mobile suits?"

"Probably not, Duo," Dumbledore replied quietly.

Duo sagged back into his chair, the weight of everything hitting him. That explained the kooky accents and the lack of technology. The situation was now very real. His subconscious was still trying to pass this all for a dream. But in this world there is no Deathscythe, no colonies to fight for. Earth was still man's only home. 1995 A.D… Duo couldn't remember exactly when the new calendar was formed, so he had no idea how technologically advanced this world was supposed to be.

"Well," Duo said, rubbing his temples slowly. "This is very messed up." Harry was staring at him as if he was an alien. Fabulous. "So. Why am I here? I doubt you went through all that trouble just to watch me give birth to a litter of kittens."

"Very well." Dumbledore leaned back into his chair. "In this world, wizards are a minority," he began. "We have always lived in secret from non-wizards. We are but a legend to them. Muggles, non-wizards, are ignorant of magic, spells, enchanted items, places, animals, et cetera.

"Hogwarts is a magical place but muggles haven't an idea of its existence. You'd wonder how we could hide a castle such as this. There are spells to make it 'unplottable', so should a muggle come here, all they would see are ruins, maybe a 'keep out' sign. So the fact that you can actually see Hogwarts alone, is an implication that you must have some magic in your blood."

It didn't take a genius to see what Dumbledore was hinting that. Duo took a deep breath. "So, that means, that I… I'm a wizard… like you. And I can use a wand," he said weakly.

"Exactly. I was hoping that you'd accept Harry here as your guide around Hogwarts, around this world even. You'd become a student here and learn to use your magic. Hogwarts' curriculum includes a large variety of studies; transfiguration, potions, divination to name a few."

Duo considered this silently. His initial euphoria of discovering this entirely new world dimmed as his mind wrapped around how far he was from home. That couldn't be all there was to it. Dumbledore, as eccentric as he appeared, wouldn't have kidnapped a boy from another world just to enlist him as a student. If the army of kids Duo had seen before was anything to go by, there is an abundance of young wizards. It didn't seem that the wizards are a dying race.

He narrowed his eyes. There was something deeper here. "But why did you choose _me_?" he challenged. "I could have lived happily at home without having to worry about all this hocus-pocus."

Dumbledore's eyes glinted. "You're special," he said. "Even for a wizard." Duo noticed Harry sit up slightly. "Duo, you are what wizards call a wielder-"

The room was filled with sharp gasps and outraged cries. The people in the portraits all started talking at the same time, some figures cowering back but most outraged. "Albus!" one sallow-faced man shouted, his expression twisted with anger. "This is an atrocity! We cannot host a wielder at Hogwarts!"

"As much as I resent the idea of agreeing with Phineas, he is right." A woman, whose face was framed by silver ringlets, stood up in her frame. "I believe I speak for everyone here when I say that it is impossible to let him stay. This is a school of _magic_ Albus."

"I agree," a rounded man boomed. Angry mutters swelled and Dumbledore held up a hand for silence.

"Please be patient my friends," he said. "Phineas, Dilys, Dexter, you all know I would never knowingly place Hogwarts in any danger. Please do not spread this to the other portraits around the school. Let this matter remain in here." The three named retreated. Phineas did so with an undignified snort.

The atmosphere in the office had nosedived and Duo shivered under the collective gaze of the paintings around them. The portraits _weren't _holograms or screens or anything of the sort. They were people and they were everywhere. It was creepy.

His face was pale, but Duo was firm in his question. "Mr. Dumbledore, what are they talking about?" he asked in a low voice.

It felt like a long time before Dumbledore met Duo's gaze. "This means you have the ability of controlling a weapon called cold iron. Tell me… you weren't electrocuted in the past few days, were you?"

Duo stiffened, his hackles rising. "How did you know about that?" Did Dumbledore orchestrate the ball lightning? If he did, the old man will be a bloody mess by the time Duo finished with him. That lightning fucking hurt. His murderous intent must have been obvious on his face as Dumbledore was quick to reassure him. Duo calmed down but still sat stiffly in his chair.

"Cold iron is formed when lightning comes into contact with iron or steel under special circumstances." Dumbledore was talking about the odd marble Wufei had found in his hand, Duo realised.

He groped around in his pocket to check if he had it with him. "What about it?" Duo's fingers closed over something cold, round and extraordinarily heavy for its small size. He pulled the little orb out and studied it. It looked completely ordinary and sat innocently in the palm of his hand.

Dumbledore pushed his glasses up his spectacularly crooked nose, shifting as if he wanted to look closer. Harry, who had been quiet during the entire exchange, leaned closer.

"Don't touch it Harry," the headmaster said sharply and Harry withdrew his hand, suddenly tense. Dumbledore donned a pair of gloves that appeared out of nowhere (Duo mentally smacked himself. '_Magic. Duh'_) and carefully picked the cold iron up. "That's an interesting looking scar," he said absently, before studying the cold iron. "Astounding," he murmured, rolling it around in his palm and looking at it so closely that the tip of his long nose almost touched the surface. He gave it back to Duo, who looked at it with a lot more interest.

"_This_?" Duo said, holding the marble up to the light. "This is a weapon?"

"Is this what you meant Professor?" Harry asked, eyeing the cold iron. "Is this what's going to help defeat Voldemort?"

Voldewhat?

Dumbledore gave Harry a reproachful look but nodded. "Yes, exactly. Now, Duo." Dumbledore's stare was intense. Even the muttering portraits fell silent to listen to what the headmaster had to say. "It was believed that cold iron could ward off ghosts, fairies and other such 'malevolent' magical beings. In medieval times, muggles would use iron as charms to protect themselves. What was it that Miss Granger said?" Dumbledore smiled at Harry. "'_Legends always have a basis in fact' _was it not? Cold iron does not just ward away magical creatures; the truth is much more devastating."

His voice dropped, his low tones carrying a secret. "Magic is all around us, invisible, but always present. Cold iron can control the very essence of magic. It can direct it, shape it and even destroy it, if powerful enough." He took a breath and leaned over his desk, closing the distance between him and Duo. "You, Duo Maxwell, have a power beyond our dreams. You also have the power to annihilate us."

Duo gawked at the old man and was only broken out of his stupor when he heard Harry's breath hitch. "So, you're saying that if he wanted to," Harry said, looking nervous. "He could just snap his fingers and all my magic would just disappear?"

"I don't see why Dumbledore's telling him all this," Phineas muttered in his frame. "Why not just teach him the killing curse as well while you're at it."

Dumbledore ignored him "Well it's not as simple as that," he chuckled, trying to ease the tension in the room. "You will have a mentor Duo. Cold iron can be somewhat erratic and influence not only the magic around you, but your own thoughts and feelings."

"So that's why I've been acting bipolar lately!" That explained the shifty mood swings and his out-of-character attitude to everything. He may be a Gundam pilot, but even he wasn't normally this jumpy. It might also explain the hot flushes. "Is cold iron supposed to hurt?" he asked, pocketing his new 'weapon'.

"You'll have to ask your teacher later I'm afraid. Even I do not know everything."

Well, now that was sorted. "That's all fine and dandy." Duo paused for a moment. He cupped his chin in mock curiosity. "And by the by, who's Voldemort?"

And bam, Dumbledore was serious again. He looked older than before, every line in his face was suddenly clearer. Harry, though he had been quiet, seemed particularly still, almost seething.

"Tom Riddle, or Lord Voldemort as he prefers to be known, is a - "

"Lunatic," Harry muttered and Duo cackled.

"As I was _saying_," Dumbledore continued, somewhat humored. "He is a wizard, a wizard supremacist. Tom believes that muggles are inferior to wizards and seeks to conquest the wizarding world in order to remove undesirable people, muggle-born wizards for example."

"Ethnic cleansing," Duo interjected. Just like the Holocaust and Black July. Humanity at its worst.

"Exactly. Harry here, put a stop to Voldemort when he was at the height of his power fourteen years ago."

Fourteen years? Short and scrawny Harry didn't look a day older than thirteen, maybe fourteen if Duo pushed it. Either that or he was a fifteen-year-old with an extremely crappy life. "You defeated the jerk when you were one?" Duo asked, trying out his theory.

Harry nodded, looking somewhat self-conscious. He shifted his eyes away, embarrassed.

"This Lord Voldemort sounds a bit of a pussy to me," Duo snorted. "So if he was defeated, why do you need me?"

"Harry witnessed his rebirth last year. Tom did not truly die fourteen years ago, but he's hardly human. The wizarding world is in denial of his return, having become indolent on peace." Dumbledore's voice became heavy, weary. "It is our refusal to deal with the unpleasant truth in front of us that will lead to our downfall.

"He is becoming stronger as we speak and I believe he will attempt to wage war against us. He has much to offer to many, dark creatures and dark wizards alike, and it is so his army will grow. Should he rise to power, the wizarding community would slip back to a world of death, fear and mistrust. Something I will not let happen again."

Duo closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, a habit that had formed when he repeatedly found himself in stressful situations. He wanted to help. Dumbledore had painted the picture of the potential destruction very well and Duo could learn so much here and put those skills to use when he got home. A Duo Maxwell was scary, but a Duo Maxwell with magic or this cold iron thing would be _terrifying_. OZ would have to surrender if Duo was able to transform a seven-ton Leo into something less useful. A giant pineapple maybe.

But he was needed back home. Though it was peaceful now, due to negotiations, that wouldn't last. War was raging and every second lost would mean more lives. Dumbledore said that people were refusing to believe that Voldemort was back, which had to mean that the wizarding world couldn't be in too bad a shape. In contrast, L2 and its rubble screamed poverty_._

There was also the problem being stuck here if the wizards didn't want him to go home.

Duo breathed in deep, as if the air was filled with answers. "I'm sorry," he finally said, tired but determined. "I can't help. I can't get involved in another war. My own world needs me."

"But surely-"

"No," Duo interrupted, before he could let Dumbledore's words sway his decision. Walking away from any battle was difficult. "I have to go back. The colonies need me, my comrades need me."

Dumbledore absorbed this comment and looked closely at the sixteen-year-old. "Who are you back home?" he asked sharply, eyebrows furrowing. A look of horrific dawning slowly spread across his wizened face. He suddenly seemed to realise that the American boy before him wasn't a normal child.

Duo could only grin and tilt his chin up, looking down his nose at the headmaster. "I'm Shinigami," he said, his voice deceptively light. "The God of Death." He paused. "I would say 'at your service' but I'm afraid I can't today."

He turned to Harry, who stared back at him nervously. "I'm sorry I can't help, but you seem to be doing a pretty good job by yourself so far. I mean you kicked his ass when you were a baby. Not too bad buddy. Now then, please tell your bird that it has a trip to make, a.k.a, I'd like to go home… please," he added belatedly. It wouldn't hurt to be polite.

There was a calculating look in Dumbledore's eyes. His fingers interlocked underneath his chin. "I'm afraid," he said slowly. "That you may have to wait a while."

Duo glared at him. "If you think you can convince me to stay then you can shove it up-"

"I have no intention of doing so," Dumbledore said, before Duo could get vulgar. "I admit that I am disappointed, but I respect your decision. The only problem is that Fawkes doesn't have enough energy to take you back home."

'_Shit.' _

"Three weeks," Dumbledore said. There was no room for negotiation in his words. "Stay here for three weeks and if you still feel the same, then Fawkes will take you home and you will never hear from us again. Is that satisfactory?"

It was far from satisfactory. But it would have to do. If he pushed for an immediate departure, Fawkes would probably just drop him into the pit of fire during the flight. As much as Duo hated to admit it, Merlin had won this time.

He sighed and then laughed, lacing his fingers behind his head in a careless fashion. "Alright old man, you got me. Fine, three weeks only. Then I hop on airline Fawkes and go home."

**End Chapter 2**

* * *

**AN: **Thank you **Sivy** for beta-ing (and also for those awesome life lessons. You're a great role model haha). Thanks also to everyone who added this to their faves or alert. It'd be great to hear from you too. ~*subtly requests for reviews*~

I'm leaving for university in two days so the next time you'll see me will probably be in maybe two weeks or so, after I get Freshers' Week over and done with. Pray for me. Next chapter will be the obligatory Diagon Alley trip, but it'll be different than the usual shopping trip.

Hope you guys enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3: Diagon Alley

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 3: Diagon Alley**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo.)

* * *

The apothecary windows were so filthy that the only sources of light were the eerie glowing jars and tanks, which were filled with all manners of potion supplies. It was cold inside; Duo exhaled silvery clouds, green-tinged from the light, and wrapped his borrowed cloak tightly around him. He stood near the back of the shop, investigating some of the more disgusting ingredients.

Hundreds of bottles, jars and baskets lined the shelves, each stranger than the last. The dim light made the inky shadows between each container deeper. Duo couldn't help but suspect that some of the live ingredients had escaped from their confines and were lurking in the dark alleys between the jars. He came across a series of gleaming, bleached skulls with empty eye sockets, black and staring.

Duo picked up a jar of what looked like pickled onions with warts. The yellowed label told him, in a baritone, that it was actually skinned frogs brains in fluxweeb bane. Duo nearly dropped the jar in surprise and the jar shrieked in a convincing falsetto. Trying to ignore the glares from the shopkeeper, Duo gingerly set the jar back on the dusty wooden shelf. _'I don't even want to know what fluxweed is.'_ Duo shuddered as he passed a tank of eyes, which swiveled around to look at him as he walked by.

Duo nearly whipped out a blade when he felt a hand grip his shoulder. "Ready to go?" a small, black-haired woman said and then noticed Duo's wide-eyed expression. "Scare you boy?" she said wryly, her faint Italian accent rolling the r.

Duo scowled. "Course not," he said, pulling his shoulder away from her hand. "If you're done collecting newt testicles, let's go."

When Duo first met Ellen Elffrost in Professor Dumbledore's office, his gut screamed _hate, hate, HATE. _He despised her on sight. Duo found himself hating things from her obscenely bright green eyes to her monotone voice to her bouncy hair. But what annoyed him the most was that he didn't really know _why_ he hated her. There was no adequate reason for such dislike, having just met the woman. But it seemed everything and anything she did pissed him off. It didn't help that the buzzing in his head went _insane _whenever he saw her.

Also she had confiscated his gun as soon as she found out about it. "Keep your head down, and do not make eye contact with people," she had said, storing the gun away safely.

It was too bad that he hated her, as she was his cold iron master.

They headed out of the store and back into the snowy wonderland. The storm from the previous day had settled and Diagon Alley looked like a Christmas toy town. The cobbled road was swollen with people who were just swollen with goods and packages. Duo shook his head at how oblivious everyone was about their belongings and money. They might as well have painted signs on their backs saying _'Rob me please. My pockets are too heavy.' _Duo could have walked down the street and back again and by the time he reached the Leaky Cauldron, he would have been a rich man.

But they probably had some sort of magical alarm on their coin purses, so he wasn't planning on trying it.

Colourful signs everywhere advertised special Christmas offers: half price slimming wizard robes, self-cleaning cauldrons and jumbo size Christmas crackers with _everything_ inside. The air swirled with the smell of sweets and hot candies and the cries of vendors advertising their goods. Kids loaded with snowballs were everywhere and Duo had to be careful not to get caught in the crossfire.

This Christmas was definitely different to the one at home. The Christmas spirit in AC 197 would have been near non-existent. They would have spent maybe five minutes wishing each other a merry Christmas and then it would be back to work. It was summer back in his world anyway, so their calendars were out of sync.

But he didn't really need to worry about that. He'd be back with his friends in three weeks.

It was the stationary store next. Duo nearly fainted when he realised that he'd actually have to write things down with a feather. "Don't you people have computers?" he said, while inspecting the expensive peacock quills. "What are you, Amish?"

Mrs. Elffrost cuffed him on the head. "The air in wizarding society is saturated with magic, which causes anything digital to short circuit. So no, we have no use for computers." Duo frowned at his non-functioning digital watch.

"Still doesn't explain why I can't use a pen," he grumbled, but followed her out of the store anyway.

They got his books from a shop called _Flourish and Blotts_, a place that Duo knew that Wufei would have loved and, if possible, bought and lived in. _'He should be the one here.' _He would have probably loved this sorcery stuff. Titles with horrific alliteration and puns, such as_ Hairy Snout - Human Heart_,_ Vanishing Vandals – When Invisibility Cloaks Attack _and _Happy Ghosts and How They Lift Their Spirits_, were stacked in the endless shelves_._

During the time that Mrs. Elffrost spent searching for the required textbooks that Duo would need, he flicked through _Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed._ He was amused at how ornery and annoying wizards could be. '_The_ _Fluid Feces hex? Awesome.' _

Mrs. Elffrost suddenly appeared from behind a bookshelf with an armful of books and said, "I am going to pay, so finish up." She noticed the book that Duo was holding and the innocent expression on his face. She merely raised a dark eyebrow. "You would end up hurting yourself if you tried magic like that."

'_Well nyehhh,_' he thought and put the book back.

As she was paying, she said to Duo, "I do not have enough money to buy the complete set of books from the first to fifth year. It would have cost far too much. So you will have to borrow either from the library or other classmates. I am sure that your teachers will understand."

Duo crossed his arms. "I don't really see the point in buying anything at all. I'm not sticking around."

Mrs. Elffrost looked at him blandly. "Oh, we will see," she said. She put the books in the big leather bag that Duo could have sworn that she didn't have before. As if to answer his unvoiced query, Mrs. Elffrost shrunk it to the size of a cigar and tucked it away.

_Madame Malkin's Robes for All Occasions_ was their next stop. Mrs. Elffrost told him that she would be looking at dress robes while Duo got measured.

Madame Malkin was a short, squat witch, who immediately started interrogating him about his hair. "Honestly," she said as she ushered him onto a wooden stool. "I can't find any quality hair-growth potions that gets this sort of result! I mean, look at how soft his hair is!" She looked like she wanted to hack off his braid and keep it for herself.

Duo just forced a smile and kept a firm hold on his hair. "Why thank you ma'am," he said, bowing elaborately in her direction. "I assure you that it's 100 percent natural."

Madame Malkin waved her chubby fingers in an embarrassed fashion. "Oh but of course. Now, we need to get you measured. Let me just fetch my tapes. There we are." The tapes floated out of her arms and circled around Duo. "Hold your arms out please. Just call me if you need any help, alright dearie?" She bustled off to assist her other customers.

Once she was gone, Duo eyed the tapes warily. He could cope with floating things, having experienced zero gravity, but this still freaked him out slightly.

A roll of tape unraveled and snaked towards his arm, drooped, then dropped and clattered to the floor. It lay still, like a normal roll of measuring tape.

Duo looked down at it and raised an eyebrow. He was pretty sure it wasn't meant to do that. Could magical things break?

The second tape measure approached him, but then joined its colleague on the floor. One by one, the tapes attempted to get closer but sagged like melting plastic as soon as they floated too close to him.

"Are you done yet?" Madame Malkin waddled back to the fitting area. She noticed the limp tapes sprawled around the legs of the stool. "What on earth happened here? Weren't you measured?"

Duo smiled apologetically and shrugged. "Sorry, I don't really know what happened."

"Oh well, a first time for everything I suppose." She bent over with considerable difficulty and gathered them into her arms. "Must be faulty. They are rather old." She wrinkled her nose distastefully. "I'll guess just have to do it the long way instead."

After having been measured in every place possible, the robes were fitted and Duo turned to look at the mirror to inspect his new outfit. _'Makes me look like the Grim Reaper,'_ he thought wryly, turning around to check the back. _'I feel like I'm gonna join a cult or something.' _

But he was grateful that it was in plain black, rather than the psychedelic colours that the headmaster was so fond of.

The same thing happened in the joke shop. _Gambol and Japes_ was a circus of movement and colours and kids crowded eagerly around displays of toys and games. Duo, in a sudden display of enthusiasm, bounded into the joke shop before Mrs. Elffrost could stop him. _'Songs that are guaranteed to stick in your head, shoelaces that never tie but always tangle, a miniscule nuke-power sling shot? AWESOME.' _If Wufei belonged in _Flourish and Blotts _then Duo belonged here.

Yet, when he would pick a toy or a trinket up in order to inspect it, it would sometimes flop over lifelessly in his hand. _'Broken? Bah,' _he didn't feel any better when it would spring back to life in another child's grip and was definitely not reassured when he felt Mrs. Elffrost's piercing gaze on him.

* * *

"Alright, we need to get your wand," Mrs. Elffrost said, crossing items off a list. "We should better hurry. I am sure that you're getting hungry." It was now late afternoon and all Duo had eaten during the trip was a toffee apple. His stomach agreed loudly with her statement.

"I could do with something," Duo admitted, looking longingly Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, which claimed to sell Hot Ice Cream. _('Guaranteed to warm you up!'_)

"Well, we will be quick then. I have a few more errands to run. You can handle Ollivander's by yourself?"

Duo didn't even bother resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Duh."

Mrs. Elffrost frowned. "None of that," she said. "Just get in there and wait for me when you finish." She turned on her heel and left Duo alone in the snow. Duo stuck his tongue out at her retreating back, flipped his scarf over his shoulder and went into the little shop.

A bell tinkled. It was dark and dusty inside, but not in the same way that the apothecary had been. The apothecary lacked the quiet, mystical quality of the wand store, where magic, even to Duo, was undoubtedly possible. He almost sort of expected Santa Claus to stroll into the shop at any moment. Accompanied by fairies.

Yet, Duo couldn't help but feel on edge. There was someone there, skulking in the shadows. "Hello?" he called out, almost wincing as the fragile silence was broken like glass by his voice.

A strange, old man appeared. The first things Duo noticed about him were his eyes. They were of a very pale color and shone through the darkness of the room like pearls. His disheveled, fluffy hair and odd smile suggested battiness, but then again, everyone here was slightly loopy. Duo knew that by the time he got home, he'd probably be a bit insane as well.

The man drew nearer and he looked closely at Duo. The strange smile turned into a frown. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice had a hypnotic quality to it. "It is not often that I don't recognize a customer." He moved his aged face close to Duo's. "You could be the son of Eliza Carleen, but she'd never allow her child to grow his hair so long. Or perhaps the son of Hayden Wire but his nose is more prominent." The man, or Mr. Ollivander Duo guessed, shook his head mournfully. "I apologize, but I can't place your parents or your ancestors. Did they buy their wands from Ollivanders'?"

Well, he didn't even come from this world so Duo supposed not. Besides, why would an L2 whore need to buy a wand anyway? "I don't think so," he offered.

"Hmm. Even if both your parents were muggles, you must have had some wizard ancestors along the line." Mr. Ollivander continued studying Duo's face. His eyes locked on to Duo's. "Your eyes…" Mr. Ollivander's own eyes widened and he quickly looked away. Duo remembered what Mrs. Elffrost had said about eye contact. He swallowed a lump that suddenly developed in his throat.

"Well never mind that." The old man seemed uncomfortable and moved quickly away. "Please stretch out your wand arm."

"You mean the arm I write with?"

"That's the one."

The right arm went up. Mr. Ollivander pulled a tape measure out of nowhere and began to roughly measure Duo; his arm length, his calf length and, oddly, the length from his nose to his mouth. Mr. Ollivander nodded and let go of the tape measure, which hovered in mid-air for a moment. He moved surprisingly quickly, almost frantically, and disappeared into the dark labyrinth of shelves, talking as he did so. "Each wand is unique to a wizard. Every Ollivander's wand has a magical substance inside: a strand of unicorn hair, a dragon heartstring or a phoenix feather. As no two people are the same, neither are two wands. And remember, it is the wand that chooses the wizard, not the other way around."

Duo wasn't really concentrating. About halfway through Mr. Ollivander's speech, the tape measure started shuddering violently. _'Oh, not again,' _Duo thought as it landed on the floor with a wooden rattle. Was he destined never to be measured?

"Um, Mr. Ollivander?" Duo said, toeing at the tape measure. "I didn't do anything, but your tape measure just died."

The sounds of boxes being pulled and pushed in and out of shelves suddenly stopped and the silence was uncomfortable. "Oh, never mind that," Mr. Ollivander said after a moment. His voice had lost its mysterious quality and was suddenly quite high. "I know what I need to know."

He came out with a couple of boxes, opened one and offered Duo a wand. "Yew, 10 1/4 inches, dragon heart string. Give it a wave."

Duo took it and flicked it in a random direction. There was bang and the display window suddenly had a huge crack in it. It wobbled for a second and then fell to pieces, the shards of glass tinkling to the ground. Snow swirled in from outside and the shop was filled with a cold wind. Duo blanched and, noting the not-so-shocked look on Mr. Ollivander's face, said brightly, "Sorry, I guess not."

The window was swiftly repaired and Mr. Ollivander grabbed the wand and stowed it away in its box. He gave Duo a longer wand and said, "Apple wood, 12 inches, unicorn hair, very stiff." Duo waved it and succeeded in turning Mr. Ollivander's hair yellow. "No, no, no. Definitely not," he said, turning his hair back to its original color and snatching the wand back.

Forty-five minutes later and Duo felt like he had been through hundreds of wands. Each time he waved one, something would break or explode or catch fire. The pile of boxes grew higher and higher on the floor, until it actually towered over the both of them. Harry had told Duo of his own wand buying experience, in which Mr. Ollivander became more and more ecstatic with the more wands he went through.

But in Duo's case, Mr. Ollivander looked like he couldn't wait to get rid of the boy. He was almost hopping on the spot, ready to seize the wand from Duo and move on to the next one.

"Chestnut, 11 inches, dragon heartstring, flexible but very strong. Go on!" There was a touch of hysterics in his voice.

As soon as Duo grasped it, he felt lightheaded and giddy, as if he had swallowed too much champagne too quickly. This was the wand. His hands instantly warmed up and what tasted like fresh air filled his lungs. He flicked it easily as if he had been using a wand for years, and a tiny firework shot out of the tip, exploding above their heads in a golden flash. Mr. Ollivander sighed with relief and hesitantly patted a shocked Duo on the back. "Well done. It would have been faster if I'd known who your parents are, but we got there in the end. Now, that would be 11 sickles please."

Elated with his success, Duo grinned at the wand in his hand. "Alright, hang on a sec." Sickles… those were the silver coins. He dug around in his pockets for the coins that Mrs. Elffrost had given to him earlier. He pulled the money out and dropped it into Mr. Ollivander's wrinkled hand. He then thrust the wand into his pocket for safekeeping.

Mr. Ollivander froze.

There was suddenly an ear-splitting keen. A blinding light erupted out of his pocket and Duo felt his scar heat up fast, like someone pressing a burning cigarette into his hand. He gasped with the pain and vaguely remembered what Dumbledore had said. _'Oh shit! Magic doesn't respond well to cold iron! Shit, shit, shit, SHIT!' _

The heat spread, up his arms, along his chest, flushing up his neck. It burnt and it stung and it reminded him painfully of the ball lightening. Duo gritted his teeth and tried to coordinate his body to get the cold iron out, get the wand out, but he couldn't move. His joints had locked up, his muscles stiff as wood. Mr. Ollivander had fallen over and was shaking, cowering on the floor.

The wand started to vibrate violently, crackling and shrieking. It rocketed out of his pocket, hit the ceiling with a crack and fell limply to the ground.

The trembling stopped and the light in Duo's pocket faded. The wailing died. The wand lay alone on the floor, surrounded by an eerie silver glow.

Mr. Ollivander stared at it, before raising terrified eyes to Duo's face. His mouth opened with a silent whisper.

Duo hastened to help him and explain what just happened. Not that he could. He didn't know what was going on either. "I-I'm sorry! I didn't know what would happen! I'm new and - "

"Get away from me!" Mr. Ollivander rasped. "Wielder!" The old man scrambled back and struggled to stand. His skin had turned a pale grey and he was sweating hard. His eyes had become glazed, their luminosity sickly.

Duo wanted to help him up, to hoist him into a chair, but Mr. Ollivander looked like he was in danger of throwing up if he got any closer. So Duo backed slowly away from him. "I'm not going to hurt you," he said, trying to calm the hysterical man, his hands held out in front of him to show that he was unarmed. "I'm not going to steal your magic. It's all right. It's alright-"

"Just get out! Please!" Mr. Ollivander said desperately. "You have your wand. J-Just go."

There was nothing else Duo could do. His presence alone distressed the wand maker. Duo turned away, picked up the wand and packed it away in its box. He prayed that it wasn't broken, otherwise he'd have to return to buy another one and he didn't want to traumatize Mr. Ollivander any further.

He left the shop and looked through the window. Mr. Ollivander was still sitting on the floor, shivering. Duo saw him take the 11 sickles from his pocket and hurl it away from him, as if contaminated.

Duo leant against the wall and slowly slid down it, his face in his hands. He wanted to go home. He already had enough shit to deal with without the whole wizard hate raid going on. Duo had only been away for not even a full day and he already missed his friends. He missed the constant sense of security he felt around them. They were the closest he could ever get to a family.

He missed home.

He missed Heero.

He needed to get out of here. He needed to get out of this world. He couldn't survive here. The rules had changed. Too many of the advantages he held over enemies had been wiped out. Gravity wouldn't work in his favor, as these people could just reverse it. His weapons were probably of no use, seeing as bullets could be reduced to dust in a matter of milliseconds. He could be rendered helpless with a flick of a stick. The only thing he had was his wit and perhaps surprise, of which the wizards had an unlimited supply.

Screw cold iron. It was useless to him.

The sound of soft footsteps on snow alerted him to Mrs. Elffrost's approach. "Duo." He looked up, face blank as he felt. "Let us go. It's late."

"It's my eyes, isn't it?" he said. He didn't miss the way Mrs. Elffrost stiffened. "They can tell by looking at my-"

"We cannot talk about this here," she said harshly and yanked Duo up. "We have one more place to go. We'll talk about it there." She cast a quick glance inside the wand shop. "I will get Professor Dumbledore to talk to him later. Come on."

She pulled Duo along, who was nearly limp with indifference. Any enthusiasm he had for the shopping trip had been sucked out of him by the wandmaker. She led him back down Diagon Alley, through the archway and the still bustling Leaky Cauldron and out into muggle London.

**End chapter 3**

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**AN: **Thanks **Sivy **for being a wonderful beta and for finding time in your busy college life to help me out. So that's chapter 4 finished! I'm sorry for taking so long to get a move on and for leaving it at such an awkward part, but university is awesome. I love this new thing I've found called a social life.

Please _do _review. There's nothing more inspiring than comments and your points make the story better. I've actually listed down a bunch of things some people have pointed out to include later. (The Duo/Weasley twins team seems very popular for some reason I _cannot _comprehend. :D ) Also, if people comment, the faster I work and the faster chapters get sent to Sivy.

So there's my plea. Hope you guys enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4: Glasgow Kiss

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 4: Glasgow Kiss**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning**: 1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo.)

* * *

The sound of dense traffic, jackhammers puncturing tarmac and Iron Maiden raging inside neon shops was like fresh air pouring into Duo's magic-blackened lungs. Ripped jeans, smoke-belching bikes, kids glued to their pagers (apparently mobile phones were still hard to come by), men in sharp suits; _this_ was a place he could understand. Duo nearly cried with happiness when they passed a McDonalds. Some things, for better or for worse, didn't change, no matter what planet he was on.

Still, even this _normal_ world was different to the one he was familiar with. Everything here was so old fashioned. There weren't any public vidphones. The voice of an omnipresent reporter and giant screens flashing with up-to-date news were curiously lacking. He caught sight of a mobile phone and realised that the term 'brick' was very accurate. It looked more like a paperweight that could easily kill someone if thrown hard enough.

This place was old and chunky, but hey, it was better than that messed up world behind them.

That wasn't the only thing that was making him feel better. Since they had left the Leaky Cauldron, the droning in his head had quietened to a low hum, which was a lot easier to ignore. Duo had almost become used to the sound and the near-silence was very, very welcome. He felt energized, a small spring in his step as he gazed around Charing Cross Road. Duo didn't know much about ancient Britain, but he knew enough to recognise characteristics of the once-empire. This was the 1990s; the age of Windows 95, the Playstation and the tremulous relationship with the European Union.

They stopped at a Starbucks and Duo's grumbling stomach was finally sated. Satisfied, he stretched languidly in the worn, leather armchair and brushed the Panini crumbs off his black shirt. (Their robes had been shed and replaced with coats. Apparently muggles, like the normal people in his own world, found robes weird. _'For good reason too,' _Duo thought, not having developed any affection for the chosen clothing of wizarding folk.)

It was late and the café was quiet. They had sat near the window so Duo could watch the adults heading home and the teens heading out. Mrs. Elffrost placed her tiny cup of espresso down on the table with a quiet _chink_. "How are you feeling?" she asked, brow slightly twisted with concern. To Duo's surprise, her voice actually sounded human.

He shrugged. "Better. Way better. It's like I can breathe again. Back in that place… " Duo jerked a thumb in the direction of the alley. "It was weird. Magic is awesome and everything, but it's like something holding me down- "

Duo stopped. He realised that he had said a lot more than he had meant to. Whatever reservations he had had about talking to Mrs. Elffrost, who he supposedly detested, had suddenly disappeared and he felt more comfortable than he had all day. Duo squinted at her. She was nodding with understanding. Before, he would have translated that as scepticism. "Did you… did you do something?" he asked, pointing a finger at her with suspicion. Did she slip something in his drink?

A small smile flickered on her face for a moment. "No."

'_Then why don't I want to kill you anymore?' _Duo wanted to ask, but figured there was probably a more diplomatic way of saying it. "Then why… "

"You were hearing things, were you not?"

Duo managed to hide his surprise, smothering it under a sly smile. "Why do you ask?"

Mrs. Elffrost leaned back in her chair. "Duo," she said and the heavy way she said his name sounded like what she was going to say next was of utmost importance. "Cold iron has… effects… on its bearer. You hated me because your cold iron sensed me as a threat to its own dominance. It is possible that should you come across another wielder, you will instinctively hate him as well. It will be difficult to master your feelingsit. The voices, the pains… " She held out her hand. The same pale pink scar shone starkly against her olive skin. "… the ostracism will all be a part of it. I presume you have noticed already."

Yeah. He had. Mr. Ollivander's terrified face appeared in Duo's mind. "What was he so scared of? Will they all be like that?"

"Not everyone. Only those of pureblood families will know the threat you pose and, even then, most do not believe that wielders exist."

'_Pureblood? Pureblood wizards? So wizards and…what was the word?' _Duo wracked his brain for the weird sounding word._ 'Muggles? Wizards and muggles can marry? That must be a hell of a surprise to the muggle.' _

Mrs. Elffrost was still talking. "Only the old families would remember the story of the wielders and even to them, it is a fairy tale. Mr. Ollivander's reaction was probably so extreme due to his extensive knowledge of different magics. But, as cliché as it sounds, wielders are very, _very _misunderstood. Should you read any book with information on wielders, they would tell you the same thing. _'Wielders are wizards whose souls are consumed by cold iron'_." Mrs. Elffrost's expression twisted with disgust. "And they believe that wielders are black holes; they suck up your magic and drain you dry." She laughed suddenly. "In illustrations, wielders are always depicted as tall, thin figures. Look at us. Are we tall? No!

"But they do have one thing right. All wielders have…" She lifted a slender finger, leant forward and gently grazed Duo's temple. He flinched very slightly at the sudden physical contact. "Deep, violet eyes."

She said this while gazing at him with acid green eyes.

'_That can't be right,' _Duo thought. "Okay… " he said slowly. "What about yours?"

"Coloured contacts," she said. "If I took them out, my eyes would be exactly the same colour as yours." Her voice was soft, wistful for a moment, before turning businesslike again. "But that is enough talk," she said. "We have to see an associate of mine before we can go back to Hogwarts."

They left the warmth of the café. The snow had built up on the ground and Duo savoured the _fwump fwump _sound he made as he stomped through it. As weather on the colonies was artificial, true snow was a rare pleasure. He enjoyed it, even if his non-magical coat wasn't as warm as his cloak had been. They passed through a couple flickering alleyways in silence, until they arrived at a number 15 Station Side. The lights were off and the peeling paint on the door fluttered in the chilly wind. The letter slot was overflowing with damp flyers and bills. The house was dead.

Mrs. Elffrost knocked.

The door opened just enough to allow a goggle-covered eye peered out.

"It is just me," Mrs. Elffrost said, an impatient note in her voice. "And it is cold out here."

"Password first, Ellie." His voice was so deep that despite how quietly the man tried to speak, his words boomed out and a street cat streaked out from behind a dustbin. It was a voice that could help someone navigate their way across a foggy river.

"If I must," she said with a long-suffering sigh. "Steam punk."

He made a delighted noise. "Cracking!" The door shut and there was the metallic sound of a bolt sliding and a chain rattling. When it opened, a large man ushered them in. "Come on in. Quickly before the ministry sees you. They've been following me. I know it. Jones has been watching me with that shifty eye all week."

"Your paranoia astounds me."

Duo's eyes quickly adjusted to the dark. The interior was just as grim as the outside suggested. Mould dominated the walls and invaded the ceiling. The floorboards complained loudly and threatened to give way as the three people moved through the house. They passed the living room and Duo heard armies of mice or roaches pitterpatter behind the wallpaper and maybe even the soft cooing of birds nesting in the fireplace. It didn't really bother him. He had seen worse on L2.

They came to what was presumably the kitchen and the man crouched down and fumbled with something on the floor. A trap door swung open on well-oiled hinges and a window of golden light spilled into the room. He dropped through with an earthshaking _thud _and hissed, "Hurry, before they see the light!"

Duo hopped through, landed lightly on his feet, flicked a bit of lichen off his shoulder and looked up.

And promptly took a step back when he realised exactly how big their host was. He was a mountain of a man, as fat as Hagrid was tall, and was bursting out of his oil-stained lab coat. His mousy brown hair was scraped back into a small ponytail and when he pushed his brass goggles onto his sweaty forehead, blue button-like eyes squinted at him suspiciously.

"And who is this?" he said, pointing a sausage finger at Duo.

"My student," said Mrs. Elffrost, climbing through and shutting the hatch. "He is the one I asked you to prepare the things for."

"Ah!" The man broke into a wide smile, double chins stretching like rubber. "This is the new wielder! Right, right!" he grabbed Duo's hand and shook it enthusiastically. "I'm Pig, pleasure to meet you! You have no _idea _how excited I was when I heard that we'd have another one."

"Uh… hi. I'm Duo," Duo said, completely overwhelmed. Pig's reaction was completely different to Mr. Ollivander's. "Nice to meet you too."

"Cracking. Right, let's have a look at your scar." Before Duo could protest, Pig had snapped his goggles back over his eyes and forced Duo's hand open, palm up. The complex goggles whirred and rattled and different sized and coloured lenses slid in and out of the eyepiece. "Yep, okay, yep." Pig made various noises of contemplation and finally after a couple moments' scrutiny, he pulled back. "There doesn't seem to be any complications," he announced. "Your scar is healing fine. But I want to put some of that salve on it, just in case. Come sit in the workshop. I've got several toys for you." He lumbered away and squeezed through another door.

"These scars are very vulnerable to magic poisoning," Mrs. Elffrost explained. "Mine had been so badly infected at one point, we thought that we would have to amputate my hand. But because you have not been exposed to magic for very long, your scar should be all right. But your under-exposure also means that the pain is more intense, so Pig has developed an ointment that will help numb and protect it."

"Who is he exactly? And… _Pig_?"

Mrs. Elffrost laughed. "He chose his own nickname. Only he was not as large back then, so the name has nothing to do with his stature. He worked as a mechanic and used to obsessively collect blocks of pig iron.

"He is the world's leading expert on cold iron and wielders. And the world's leading junk food appreciator." Mrs. Elffrost looked at one of his hanging lab coats with a critical eye. It could have been used as a four-man tent. "The only reason why he lives in this decrepit building is that this is the only area with a McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and KFC all within a couple metres of each other. Also, the staff know him so well that he does not even have to call to order anymore."

"And tonight's pizza night," Pig called out. "Are you going to come in or what? Ellie, the hair net is in the bathroom." Mrs. Elffrost disappeared into another room.

To say that Pig's workshop was a mess was an understatement. A large square and metal workbench sat in the middle of the room. It was littered with wires, ball bearings, odd slabs of metal, two or three toolboxes, cogs, playing cards and glass and all sizes of spanners and screwdrivers. A half completed robot sat against a wall, along with a tiny roofless children's car that had one massive seat. The walls sagged with shelves and racks filled with tools and batteries and light bulbs. A pile of pizza boxes wobbled perilously in the corner of the room. The room was bathed in amber light from Victorian gas lamps and the fireplace and the low hum of machinery buzzed constantly.

Duo noticed a PC in the corner in all its white plastic glory. _'Amazing,' _he thought, wanting to inspect it and take it apart. He knew several people back home who would have gladly sold their souls to get their hands on the rare vintage treasure.

He stepped inside and was greeted with a _crunch_. He looked down and saw that he had stepped on a McDonalds cola cup.

Duo recognised a mechanic's garage when he saw one. He also recognised a slob when he saw one.

Pig patted a wooden bar stool. "Here, here." Duo perched on it obediently as Pig snapped on a pair of latex gloves. "Ellie hasn't been too harsh on you?" he said, scooping out a dollop of white cream from a tub and spreading it generously on Duo's hand.

"Well, I have not started teaching him," Mrs. Elffrost said, reappearing. She had changed her clothes and now wore a pristine lab coat and rubber gloves that went up to her elbows. Her hair was covered with a cafeteria lady's net, her mouth with a surgical mask and her shoes with plastic bags. She had a vicious gleam in her eyes and brandished disinfectant in her hand.

"Ellie is a neat freak," Pig tried to whisper. "Whenever she comes here, she just _has_ to tidy up. Usually I have to help, so let's try take as long as possible, eh?"

"I heard that," she said, attacking the physics-defying skyscrapers of boxes and KFC buckets. "If it were not for me, you would drown in your own waste."

"Why not use magic?" Duo asked.

"I would, but I have a lot of experiments and electronics in here. Too much magic could cause things to short circuit or my computer to hang. But that's the beauty of my work." He spread his fingers in front of his face in a dramatic fashion. "Combining the world of magic and muggle together! It doesn't work that well though…" Pig shrugged. "I don't really care. I prefer muggle magic tricks anyway. Here." Pig grabbed a deck from the workbench and shuffled. "Pick one."

Humoured, Duo pulled out the eight of hearts and Pig shuffled it back in without looking at it. After a second, he pulled it out again. "Here it is. Eight of hearts."

"What are you trying to take me for?" Duo said, his sharp eyes having caught the trick. "You kept your pinky on the card,"

"Oh did I?" A grin spread over his large face. "I guess I was busy pulling these out from your hair." He held up a closed fist. Three lock picks were inserted between his fingers like claws. Duo was impressed. For a fat man, he was quick.

"Stop wasting time with your games and get the contacts out," Mrs. Elffrost said, scrubbing furiously at an unidentifiable stain on the floor. "We do not want to spend all night here."

"Sure, sure." Pig waddled to the fireplace. "I made them today so I haven't had the time to test them." He tossed a small box to Duo, who caught it easily. Nestled inside was a pair of amber tinted contact lenses.

"We need to hide your eyes," Mrs. Elffrost said. "You cannot continue walking around like that. The contacts were meant to have been ready before today but…" She glared at Pig, who coughed sheepishly. "But that is not the only thing they are for. Put them in."

Duo hadn't worn contacts before and fumbled with the tiny disc.

"Here." Mrs. Elffrost pulled one of the gloves off and helped him. "Place one on your index finger. Use your middle finger to pull the skin down and then use your other hand to pull up your eyelid. Then slide it in…"

Ow. That was uncomfortable. It felt like he had five eyelashes in his eye at once. But it was hardly the worst pain he had ever had to endure so he adjusted quickly. He popped the other one in and squeezed his eyes shut, wincing.

"Ahhh, does it hurt that bad?" Mrs. Elffrost said in mock concern and Duo hurriedly wiped the stream of tears away.

"I'm fine. This is just an emotional moment," he said, sniffing dramatically. "Okay. What else can these things do?"

"What did you learn about cold iron today?"

"Uh… you can absorb magic-"

"Not absorb," Pig interrupted. "Erase, destroy, yes. But not absorb."

Duo rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Alright, destroy. You can also redirect or cut magic streams."

Mrs. Elffrost nodded. "Correct. In order to redirect or cut these streams, you have to be able to see it. The contacts allow you to do so."

"Huh, okay." He looked around. Everything kind of looked the same. Was he supposed to be seeing sparkles? Unicorns? "What does magic look like?"

"Later. Your contacts right now are inactive. To activate them, you need to format them." Mrs. Elffrost glanced at her watch and started. "This late already? Duo, we have to go. Pig has one more thing to give you."

The one more thing turned out to be a simple golden locket on a fine chain. Duo clicked it open with a fingernail and ran his finger over the deep, circular groove inside. "This is really flattering and all but you're a married woman, Mrs. Elffrost!" Duo said flirtatiously, giving her a suggestive wink. The flirty expression quickly turned to one of exaggerated pain when she smacked him with a spanner. He pouted and nursed his head. "You could have just said no. Anyway, why are you giving me jewellery?"

"It dulls cold iron's effect on things around you," she said. "Also it shuts the voices up."

"Sweet." He pulled the metal ball out of his pocket and tried to slot it into the locket. It suddenly vibrated angrily and the humming, which had been relatively quiet until now, swelled and grew in his mind, resonating within his ears. Duo nearly dropped it in surprise and had to grit his teeth against the noise. "Shut up," he ground out and managed to force it inside. Pushing it in was like trying to force two like magnets together, but with a little effort, it slotted in. Blessed silence reigned and Duo sighed with relief. He felt lighter, as if cold iron had been a giant weight around his neck, and he grinned easily at Mrs. Elffrost. "So I won't accidently kill floating measuring tapes anymore?"

Pig and Mrs. Elffrost laughed. "Go wait outside Duo. I have to speak briefly with Pig."

"I'll be seeing you, wielder," Pig said with a friendly wink. "Oh by the way, I wouldn't stay inside too long. The bats have the habit of letting their bowels loose wherever they please. And bat shit is nasty in your hair."

"Duly noted. Right, I'm off." He clambered out of the hatch and went straight outside. Not only was he worried about the bats or other animal inhabitants of the house, the ceiling looked like it could give way at any random moment. So he stood under the dying streetlamp, kicking idly at the snow, hands shoved deep inside his pockets, pondering.

His situation was looking up. Not everyone would piss themselves when they saw him. He probably won't go mad, now that the voices have shut up. He had a ticket home, as long as he could hold out for the three weeks. A small bonus was that he'd probably be able to learn a couple tricks here and maybe, just _possibly_, have fun. Harry had looked a little depressed. Perhaps Duo could cheer him up a little in his unique, obnoxious way.

Duo stiffened when he heard voices from the mouth of the alley. Loud voices. Leery voices.

Bad voices.

"Heyyy missy," one called out to him. "Wot you doing all alone 'ere?"

He relaxed. They were perverts who though he was a girl. That wasn't anything new. Duo cracked his knuckles. There were only two of them. He knew a great way to show exactly how masculine he-

His blood froze. They were wearing robes. Robes meant wizards and wizards meant he didn't stand a chance. _'Oh fucking hell,' _he thought, glancing quickly at Pig's door. He couldn't sense any movement from inside. It didn't sound like Mrs. Elffrost was coming out anytime soon and he had locked himself out. He didn't know how to use cold iron yet either. And the two men were coming straight towards him, the dim street light giving their eyes a mad glaze. They weren't drunk, as Duo had hoped. Their wands were already drawn.

Inside wouldn't provide him with any defence. Should he run? If he ran, Mrs. Elffrost might come out and she'd have to deal with them instead. _'She has cold iron and magic. She'll be fine,' _his brain argued. But Duo's innate sense of chivalry prevented him from running. He remained rooted to the spot. _'I have to fight them. I have to fight them.' _

"Back off," Duo said forcefully and far more confidently than he felt. Perverted old men or not, these people could set him on fire, riddle him full of holes, turn him inside out… Duo's stomach rolled just thinking about it. The book he had read earlier in Diagon Alley only provided his already overactive imagination with more gory results. _'Calm down! You've handled situations like this before. You're still stronger than them!' _

They stopped and glanced at each other with confusion. "What the fuck?" one hissed. "A bloke!"

That was all the distraction he needed. Duo hurled himself at them with an ear splitting bellow and prayed from the bottom of his heart that they hadn't learned half the spells he had found in _Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed_. Because that stuff looked really, really painful.

* * *

Harry sat in the common room, a book nestled uselessly in his lap. He ignored it in favour of staring at the fire. Duo –_'what kind of a name is that?' - _had gone to Diagon Alley that morning to pick up supplies, and _still_ wasn't back, so Harry was alone in the tower, save for perhaps a couple of over zealous seventh years intent on studying that Christmas.

When Dumbledore had said _'overseas student'_, Harry had thought of France, Spain, maybe Germany or America. He had hoped for an English speaker because Harry really didn't feel up to trying to communicate in broken Franglaise for the entirety of his Christmas holiday. Instead, he got an American terrorist with really long hair and who knew too much about guns. His neck still tingled where the sharp edge of the blade had nearly –

No. He shouldn't think about that. Duo had apologised. He had been confused and scared at the time. It might be normal procedure to attack someone like that in whatever place he came from. A world where teenagers were armed with knives and guns and fought in wars could hardly be a place where children could grow up normally, not that Harry considered his own childhood normal, having grown up on in a cupboard.

Which was possibly why Dumbledore had assigned Harry to look after him, Harry figured. He was probably supposed to help Duo adapt and learn about the wizarding society before plunging him into a school and expecting him to fit in. But Harry didn't really think that there was any point if Duo was determined to leave after the three-week period. So he had been robbed of his holiday for nothing and would be trapped at Hogwarts for another term. He knew it wasn't really Duo's fault. Duo wanted to be here far less than Harry did.

'_But I was nearly stabbed!' _the pissy, grudge-holding part of his mind seethed. _'I should at least be allowed to get out of here for a little while.' _

Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair. It was going to be hard to get over this and he _definitely _didn't want a huge amount of negativity building up inside him. He had seen the result of bottled up emotions at the end of last summer when he exploded at Ron and Hermione. To have a repeat of that with Duo would be awful, especially as Harry didn't want to alienate himself even further from company.

Surprisingly, he didn't _hate _Duo even after having been shoved around and nearly stabbed. Duo was witty, he seemed quite laid back and was good-natured when he relaxed. Harry could easily see himself hanging out with the boy. But when Duo felt threatened or angry, he _changed_. His face would harden and there was a lethal, steely note in his voice. Harry had unintentionally flinched and drawn back from him as Duo verbally lashed out at the headmaster when electrocution had been mentioned.

There were other strange, almost _inhuman_ things about him. Duo was freakishly fast. The speed at which he moved when he was running away from Harry was unbelievable; he had shot around the corner just as Harry had run out of the classroom. He was strong as well; Harry was going to bruise badly where Duo had gripped his arm when he was forced up against the wall.

And _then_ there was alsothe cold iron business, which was just the icing on the cake. Harry had no idea what Dumbledore meant by how cold iron could _"influence magic" _and was very slightly nervous at the idea of having to be in the general vicinity of a boy who could accidentally destroy his magic.

"_Three weeks and should you still feel the same, then Fawkes will take you home and you will never hear from us again," _Dumbledore had said. _"Should you feel the same." _Harry propped his head in his hand. He couldn't really see Duo staying, considering how determined he was to go. He just hoped that Duo would be able to handle being thrust into a new world so suddenly. Wizards, from his experience, could be quite overwhelming.

Meanwhile, back in the headmaster's office, Dumbledore was having similar doubts. When Duo had raised his chin defiantly and thrown the word _'comrades' _at him, Dumbledore had been thrown for a moment. He was only vaguely familiar with muggle weapons but still knew very well that a child of Duo's age definitely shouldn't be carrying a gun and a collection of knives. How important was Duo Maxwell in his own world? By keeping him here, how many lives would be lost in his war? How many lives would be lost in their war if Dumbledore sent him back? The headmaster could have returned him immediately if he had felt like it. Fawkes not having enough power was a necessary lie, as Dumbledore needed time to convince Duo.

Or, as he preferred and hoped, _Harry _needed time to convince Duo. Dumbledore knew that Harry could be very persuasive without realising it, which was a great benefit to him in terms of creating allies and friends. And he had hoped that Harry's company would be enough to make Duo stay, but after peeking into Duo's mind, he knew that that might not be the case. Smoke, huge humanoid metal beings, explosions and rubble was all he was able to see before being forcibly thrown out by Duo's cold iron defences. Duo's situation was dire and his status as a wielder didn't help his prospect of staying at all.

'_I can only hope that my staff don't treat him as I expect most of the wizarding world would,' _Dumbledore thought gravely.

* * *

Duo realized something wonderful while delivering a flying kick to the wizard's face.

These people were completely and utterly incompetent.

'_They're idiots!' _he thought gleefully, ducking under a jet of red light and delivering a fist full of justice and joy into a stomach. He didn't even need his knife. Wizards were good at showing off, at making things zoom around and sparkle, but they seemed to be useless in an asskicking. The look of surprise on the wizard's face when Duo happily head-butted him rather than use some fancy curse was amazing.

His victim fell back, bent over and clutching his bloody nose. He started to say something, a spell, his wand aimed at Duo, but his words were muffled and slurred due to blood clogging up his nasal passages. Duo merely stepped forward and plucked the offending wand from the wizard's hand.

He examined the wand, bending it and testing its strength. _'Surely it couldn't be this easy… naw. No way."_ The wizard tried to grab it back. Duo booted some snow into his face and elbowed him in the solar plexus before he could even get close.

Breaking a wand could have bad effects or something. He could be fried on the spot or maybe some kind of magical backlash might set him on fire.

Duo shrugged. Oh well.

In one quick, deft movement, he snapped the wand over his knee. It crackled and then fizzled out pathetically. _'Wow. It __**is**__ this easy. Cool.' _

Screw cold iron. He could do things his way after all.

"Here you go, asshole!" he said cheerfully, dropping the now broken wand at the winded and bloody man's feet. "Next time I catch you harassing someone, I'll snap your other wand instead. The one in your _pants_."

There was a movement behind him. Not even needing to turn around, Duo had his gun out and cocked at his would-be attacker. "I wouldn't try it if I were you, buddy," he said, voice light but still promising pain. "You say a single word and I'll blow your brains out." He sounded too happy given the situation, but he didn't care.

The man hesitated, not entirely sure what that metal thing in Duo's hand was but he had enough common sense to know it was bad. He backed away when Duo turned around to face him completely, dark amusement dancing in his amber eyes.

"Get out of here," Duo said, jerking his head in the direction of the mouth of the alley. They didn't need any encouragement. They scrambled out of the alley and Duo heard a _crack_. Then there was only the sound of the wind. He sighed with relief and grimaced a little when he wiped a bit of blood off his cheek. "Aww, gross."

A voice piped up. "Now what was that about?" Duo whirled around, guard up and knees bent in a defensive stance. Mrs. Elffrost was leaning against the door with her arms crossed. She rolled her eyes. "It is just me."

He relaxed. "Haha, sorry. Two guys thought that it'd be a good idea to hit on me. I decided to show them a good time."

"I can see that. Are you all right?"

"Fine!" Duo chirped. "I feel a lot better about my chances of survival here now. Especially if everyone fights like them."

"I'm afraid that is not always the case, but for the majority it is. I think you will be happy to know that ninety percent of wizards rely on their wands for fighting, which, as you demonstrated, can easily be broken." She eyed his gun. "I thought I had taken that from you."

"I stole it back." Duo twisted his neck from side to side, relishing the cracks and pops. He hadn't had a good scuffle in a while. Well, that encounter had hardly constituted as 'good', but dodging laser beams of magic had been interesting twist. "Can we go back now?"

"Of course." They made their way back to the Leaky Cauldron, picking their way through overturned bins and bloody snow. "Are you looking forward to flooing back to Hogwarts?"

Nausea-inducing fireplace hopping? Duo couldn't think of anything better.

**End Chapter 4**

* * *

**AN: **This chapter was first written over a year ago and has been sitting in my computer ever since. How sad is that.

...yeah. Anyway, thanks to 'e' for reminding me that this fic exists! I actually have a couple more chapters written. I'll fix them up and post them when I'm not stressing. Thank you for reading, and reviewing helps my memory stay in shape!

**Edit**: Goddamn ffdotnet, I disappear for over a year and you nick all my line breaks. Ahjksfhksfslfsladl :C Disapprove.


	5. Chapter 5: The Last Straw

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 5: The Last Straw**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning**: 1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo.)

* * *

The food, oh god, the _food. _Duo was in heaven. His plate was a mountain of steaming roasted meat, potatoes, fluffy Yorkshire pudding and chestnut stuffing, parsnips, carrots and mashed turnip all smothered generously in thick gravy. The sheer quantity and richness of the food was so overwhelming that Duo was sure that he'd probably be throwing up later. But that didn't stop him from shovelling it in as fast as possible. Duo's body wanted to stock up on as much food as possible, in case this world turned against him and he wouldn't be able to eat this well again in a while. He only just managed to squash the urge to hoard food inside his jacket.

"You're only supposed to eat Yorkshire pudding with beef," Harry said, having had lessons in _normal _eating habits shrieked into his ear by his aunt after the first time he asked for Yorkshire pudding with pork roast. He had never made the mistake again. (He still didn't realise that it was just his aunt being pedantic and bitter.) Harry watched the spectacle with almost wide-eyed wonder. This guy could rival Ron in the eating department.

"Can't talk," Duo said, cheeks squirreled with broccoli. "Oh man, your _vegetables_…" Usually Duo avoided the deadly greens as much as he could, but here, they were sweet and buttery. _'I guess that's the difference between Earth food and colony food,' _he thought, taking a break to inhale. The one thing he spat out was the pumpkin juice – that shit was weird.

Harry ate at a more sedate pace, questions leaping around in his head, clamouring for his attention. He had been bursting with curiosity all day. Why had they taken so long? Duo and his guide, the defence against the dark arts teacher's wife, had left almost immediately from the headmaster's office that morning and only returned for a late supper. Did he learn anything about cold iron? Where was he from exactly? What can he do? _Why was he armed?_ But he couldn't ask here; the small population of mixed-year students staying over Christmas ate together at the same table. The teachers, thankfully, still ate at the table on the dais.

Duo let the cutlery fall from his fingers with a clatter and leaned back with a satisfied burp. "Phew, 'scuse me. Man, I can't remember the last time I ate that much. So what have you done today?"

Harry hadn't had anyone to talk to since that morning and had resorted to flying in the snow to ease his boredom. "Flew."

"Flew? Like airplane-flew?"

"Broomstick-flew."

Duo grinned widely. "I knew it. Awesome! You have to show me later!"

"Er, sure."

This Duo was different to the one Harry had met that morning. Duo in the morning was paranoid, hostile and slightly psychotic. But now, it didn't feel like Harry would have much of a problem to convince Duo to stay. Duo chattered all the way back to the common room about anything and everything. He responded enthusiastically to Harry's questions. "Where am I from? I'm from L2… uh it's a space colony… wait, you don't have space colonies. It's too early for that huh. Christ… what? Oh, well it's like a gigantic hamster wheel in space with houses inside. (Insert incomprehensible hand gestures here.) Okay yeah, never mind." It was the stuff of science fiction and Star Wars to Harry cursed his lack of physics lessons.

It was late and Duo had had a reasonably busy day. He had woken up in an unknown infirmary, taken Harry hostage, been caught by a giant, had his mind blown repeatedly by the assault of what-the-hell information (that is: magic), spun around in a fireplace, gone shopping, had his wand nearly fry his leg off, met Pig and got into a fight. It sounded like a bad hallucinogenic trip. Duo felt that he had every right to be absolutely shattered. The amount of food he had eaten settled comfortably in his stomach and a pleasant drowsiness seeped through him. _'Sleep,' _his brain begged, needing time to digest everything, both data and dinner. As much as Duo would have liked to keep talking and learn more about his current situation, there was a bed somewhere bellowing his name with a foghorn.

The giant, four-poster bed inside the dorms looked like something out of the _Home for the Quintessentially English _magazines that Quatre usually had lying around his mansions. Duo threw himself on it, rubbing his face into the soft duvet with pleasure. "Ohohoho, yessss." There was a trunk at the foot of it, filled with necessities such as pyjamas, slippers and bathroom stuffs. Duo didn't even know if he could be bothered to change, but thought he ought to. There was still blood on his clothes from the encounter in the alley and, though it didn't show up on black, he knew that it would stink like hell later. Five minutes later, he was out like a light. Downstairs in the common room, Harry grumbled his way through a Potions essay.

Duo woke up to a bright December morning, where the frost glittered on the glass and the grounds outside was blanketed with a layer of pristine snow. The sky was an ethereal blue and one lone cloud hovered hesitantly on the horizon. Duo threw the window open, sucking in a huge gulp of clear, cold air. The air here was so _clean_. It didn't have the metallic tang of the processed oxygen from the colonies nor did it have the polluted tinge from his Earth, where every time Duo sneezed his phlegm came out grey.

Harry was still snoring from his own bed. Duo contemplated on whether he should take advantage of this situation, but decided against it. Harry had been very nice to him so far, so Duo saw no need to do something as juvenile as draw on his face. Instead, he investigated the bathroom, showered leisurely and when Harry awoke, Duo was sitting on his bed, carefully braiding his wet hair.

"Do you always wear it like that?" Harry asked, changing into battered jeans and a jumper.

"Yeah, it gets everywhere otherwise. Damn pain in the neck," Duo said around the hair tie clenched between his teeth. "Do you have anything like a hair dryer here?"

"Er… " Harry, whose hair never took longer than maybe fifteen minutes to dry, knew nothing of the intricacies of long hair. "My friend knows a drying charm," he said lamely.

"Do _you_ know a drying charm?"

"No."

Duo flapped a hand dismissively. "Then you're useless to me. Oh well." He flicked the braid over his shoulder after patting the 'damn pain in the neck' fondly. "I'll just wait it out. I'll have to find a hat if we're going to go outside though."

Breakfast was, again, amazing by Duo's standards. He munched happily on his toasted muffins as Harry pointed out the various teachers sitting at the high table. "That's Professor McGonagall. She's head of Gryffindor and Transfiguration. She makes you work really hard, but she's fair. And that's Professor Elffrost sitting next to her, the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher."

'_That must be Mrs. Elffrost's husband,' _Duo thought, taking in Professor Elffrost's slow, precise movements and deep, rumbling laugh. When he stood, Duo saw that the Professor was a tall guy, about six foot nine. Mrs. Elffrost would have been tiny next to him._ 'Man, they're a weird looking couple,' _he thought with a small laugh. "Is he any good?"

"Well, we haven't had the best series of Defence against the Dark Arts teachers," Harry said, helping himself to more kippers. "The first one was possessed by Voldemort, the second was a arrogant prat, the third was brilliant and the fourth was insane. So the fact that we're learning something for once is good."

"What happened to the third one?"

A dirty expression crossed Harry's face. "He's a werewolf," he said, but Duo didn't think that the venom in Harry's voice was directed towards the werewolf. Instead, Duo followed Harry's line of sight and saw a dark haired hook-nosed teacher sitting next to the headmaster. "If it weren't for _him_," Harry spat. "Professor Lupin would still be here." The teacher must have somehow felt their gaze because he glanced up and both Harry and Duo looked in opposite directions immediately, Harry because he knew better than to aggravate the Potions teacher; Duo because he felt uncomfortable when they made eye contact. The man's fathomless black eyes had an almost soul searching quality.

"Professor Snape," Harry said under his breath, throwing all the hatred he could muster into the name.

There was movement above them and as Duo craned his neck to look up at the enchanted ceiling, several birds soared in. A white owl stood out starkly against the pure blue of the sky and dropped down towards them. Duo ducked instinctively –_ 'more kidnapping birds?' _– but the owl came to a stop in front of Harry, nearly sticking its foot into the porridge.

Harry unattached the letter from the owl's foot, affectionately fed it small bits of bacon and sent it on its way.

"Okay," Duo said flatly, picking feathers out of his food. "What."

Harry, who was in the process of opening the envelope, looked at Duo strangely and then remembered that he hadn't seen owl mail before. "Oh, right. That's Hedwig. We use owls here to deliver mail." The letter, Harry recognising the scrawl with a joyful burst inside his chest, was from Sirius.

_Harry, _it said.

_I have half the mind to send Dumbledore a howler, but was forbidden to by Molly as my 'voice might be recognised'. Honestly, I might kill that woman one day. I'd been looking forward to our Christmas together as well, but what Dumbledore says, goes. I might set the wards against him for a night, so that he can see what it's like. Bloody, manipulative –_

There was a crossed out expletive there and Harry noted with satisfaction that Sirius was just as frustrated as he had been. But Duo wasn't as bad as he had predicted (bar the whole-threatening-with-a-knife bit) so Harry thought the arrangement was bearable.

_We'll organise some sort of meet up in Hogsmeade when Dumbledore lets me out of this bloody cage. _

_Can't say anymore, I'm afraid. You know how it is._

_See you soon kiddo,_

_Snuffles _

It was an okay letter. If Harry had to grade it, he'd have given it an 'acceptable'. It was frustrating that they couldn't talk openly, in case the mail was being watched, not that Harry thought that it was.

"I'll teach you codes," Duo said in response to this, as they walked out of the Great Hall. "I'll teach you codes that will screw your mind over repeatedly. So why do you think it's being watched?"

"The ministry think that Dumbledore's trying to take over," Harry said. "Fudge, the minister of magic," he clarified. "He's scared of Dumbledore's popularity. He knows that Dumbledore's much stronger and smarter than he is and especially now that we're saying Voldemort's back… "

"Fudge is trying to find evidence of a planned coup," Duo finished. He knew enough of idiot politicians and could smell the rotting stench of cowardice and corruption from miles away. "Man oh man. And they're bitching about both you and Dumbledore in the papers?"

Harry nodded angrily. "Yeah, so now I look like I'm mental."

"Sorry to interrupt you, boys." Dumbledore stood behind them, having appeared from nowhere (which probably wasn't too far from the truth in Duo's opinion). He held an old leather hat in his hands and Harry's eyes widened with recognition. "I'm have afraid I have steal Mr. Maxwell away for a while."

"It's Duo, Professor," Duo said, laughing. "I guess I'll catch you later. Don't forget, we'll do codes later 'kay?"

"Right, later."

Duo fell into step with the headmaster, turning back into the Great Hall. "So what's up, A.D?"

"We need to determine which house you'll be staying in for the duration of your stay," Dumbledore said, looking down at the hat fondly.

"Can't I just stay with Harry?"

"Tradition can be a harsh mistress, I'm afraid. How are you finding it here, Duo?"

"Pretty cool. The food here is great!"

Dumbledore chuckled. "I'll pass on your compliments to the house-elves."

Duo's mind was suddenly full of images of tiny little people making copious amounts of food with pots and pans much too large for them. "House-elves?"

"Intelligent humanoid beings who are bound here and take care of Hogwarts' upkeep. Not to worry, they are quite happy with this arrangement."

"Ah." He'd have to meet these house-elves at some point. Hopefully they'll be nicer than the goblins at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. It wasn't his fault that his cold iron had acted up while they were whizzing through the underground tunnels and the speeding cart had nearly flown off the track. Duo guessed that goblins could sense thieves and his history as a street urchin probably showed up loud and clear on their goblin-radar.

"Here we are." They came to a door flanked by two gargoyles that stood to attention as Dumbledore passed through. There were several teachers waiting inside and they stood when Professor entered. Duo took in their features quickly. Most were old, tall and wore hats and robes, smiles and curiosity.

"I believe that a couple of introductions are in order. Professors, this is Duo Maxwell, our exchange student."

Duo touched his head in a casual salute. "Hey."

Duo knew most of the teachers by name already, thanks to Harry, and just nodded and smiled as Dumbledore introduced them. Snape's eyes were as dark and unreadable as he had thought them in the Great Hall.

"I know that you are wondering why I gathered you all here today," Dumbledore said afterwards. He opened his mouth to continue and Duo suddenly had the disturbing impression that the headmaster was bracing himself for an oncoming tornado.

"Duo Maxwell is a cold iron wielder."

There was a silence so complete that the fire had ceased crackling, no draught disturbed the curtains and Duo's heartbeat roared in his ears. The words hung in the air, suspended by disbelief and shock.

Professor McGonagall was the first to shake herself from the wide-eyed stupor that had gripped the teachers.

"Albus," she said, voice thick with a Scottish accent. "What are you trying to tell us?"

"It is just as I said," Dumbledore said, standing as fast as rock against the extreme expressions of the teachers. "Duo is a wielder, incidentally from another world. He is here to learn magic and - "

The teachers started talking very fast. "You cannot possibly think that we can-" "How are we supposed to-" "Impossible!" the tiny wizard, Professor Flitwick, cried, almost jumping on the spot. "Wielders cannot learn magic! He'd just destroy any magic he comes in contact with."

"That is a misconception, Filius," Dumbledore said sharply, staunching the flow of aggravated voices. "Trained wielders have more control than that and, with training, Duo will be able to control both magic and cold iron proficiently."

Snape spoke for the first time. "And just who," he said slowly, catching Duo unawares by the silkiness of his voice. "Will train him?"

'_That is one sexy voice,' _Duo thought, in slight shock from the entire situation and thinking stupid things. He shook himself.

"Ellen Elffrost will be in charge of training him. She is a wielder herself."

"Ellen?" said Professor Sprout, eyebrows having disappeared into her gray hairline. "But she's - "

"In complete control of her cold iron and is also able to perform magic more proficiently than most wizards I know," Dumbledore interrupted. "And so, I _insist_ that you remove these ridiculous preconceptions of wielders being mindless magic destroyers."

There was a murmured assent but Duo didn't feel that it was genuine. Dumbledore clapped his hands with a forced cheerfulness. "Well, now that we've established that, Mr. Maxwell can be sorted. Please sit down, Duo."

Duo eyed the hat warily. "What does that do?"

Dumbledore only smiled and placed it gently on Duo's head. It slipped down over his forehead and eyes. The old, musty smell of leather filled Duo's senses and he waited. He shifted and felt the comfortable pressure of his gun against his lower back, where it was stuffed into his waistband.

He could still hear the teachers talk among themselves. "I cannot believe that Albus is actually going to go ahead with this," McGonagall said quietly. "This is absolute insanity. A wielder at Hogwarts?"

Duo's concentration on the outside going-ons was cut short. _'Hello,'_ a voice said, high with surprise. _'Bit early this year, isn't it. It's only Christmas!'_

Duo had half the mind to rip the hat off his head and shoot it to bits and then stomp on it and beat it with stick. But the word _'magic'_ had long since inscribed itself onto his brain, so he managed to restrain himself.

_'Oh no,'_ the hat said, shuddering slightly on his head at the mental image. _'That won't do at all.'_

'_Hi,'_ Duo thought to the darkness_. 'Sorry about that, you kinda surprised me. So... sort me?'_

_'My pleasure. A moment, if you would.'_

Duo drummed a tune on his knee. There was an awful lot of '_hmm'_-ing and '_ahhh'_-ing. After a minute, the hat actually twitched on Duo's head.

'_Well?' _Duo wouldn't have minded where he ended up, but he did hope he was with Harry.

'_You...'_ the hat stuttered, a tone of bemusement echoing in Duo's head. _'You are one of the wielders?'_

Duo stiffened, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the chair. _'Not you too,'_ he thought, hoping in vain that the hat would be able to look past the boundary that separated Duo from the rest of the wizarding population.

'_This is impossible. I cannot and will not allow a wielder to become a part of this school.'_

_'Well, if Dumbledore forces me to join... then I suppose you'll just have to listen to him,'_ Duo replied crossly, resisting the urge to snap.

Duo felt a wry chuckle echo through his mind_. 'I have been here far longer than Headmaster Dumbledore. I hold nothing but the utmost respect for him; however, if he were about to commit a grave error, I would do my best to stop him.'_

_'And allowing me to stay here is wrong? I have nowhere to go. This... world, time, whatever, is totally unknown to me. I won't last a second out there.' _The sheer amount of prejudice the hat was displaying was enough to make Duo briefly forget about the three-week deadline.

'_You forget that you are no longer in the war torn world that you were raised in. The muggle world is similar to the places in your mind. I'm sure that you would be able to adjust.'_

Duo could do nothing but gape soundlessly at the hat's thoughtless attitude. He felt the eyes of the teachers drill holes through the tired leather and the disapproval that tinted the smell of the old material. Duo had to suppress the bile threatened to make its way out of his mouth. _'This is just because I'm a wielder. Right?'_

'_Yes.'_

_'Isn't that prejudice?'_

'_I am not prejudiced. I am protecting Hogwarts.'_

_'You think that I can destroy Hogwarts,'_ Duo accused, not realising the absurdness of the situation. He was debating with a mind reading hat. The sane part of his mind should have been appalled. _'How can I do that when I don't even know what the hell I am?'_

'_You'll find out. Headmaster Dumbledore will no doubt attempt to hone your... talent... and use it to aid him.'_

The hat refused to say anymore. It merely folded over and slid off Duo's head. The thump as it hit the carpeted floor signalled that their discussion was over. Dumbledore had looked at it with a silver eyebrow raised, as he had stooped over to pick it up and jammed it on his own head. He removed it after a moment's argument with the hat. He didn't look angry, however weariness lined his aged face.

Duo knew what the teachers were hoping. He knew their expressions too well. It was the same expression people wore when they saw him in his early, street rat days. _'Well they don't have to put up with me long,' _Duo thought._ 'Three weeks, just three weeks… ' _

"I'm afraid," the headmaster said slowly. "We'll have to attempt another method."

"Albus," McGonagall said, again. "Surely this is a sign. Doesn't it even matter to you that he might be a danger to the school? Doesn't the fact that the hat _refused_ to sort him tell you anything?"

"Professor McGonagall," Duo said, figuring he might as well stick up for himself. "I'm not gonna kill any of your students. I swear." He might as well not have spoken for all the difference it made.

"That is enough Minerva. If the hat can't choose, then we will have to sort him ourselves." He gestured for the heads of houses to draw nearer to him.

"I beg your pardon?" McGonagall asked faintly as she moved forward. The headmaster was rummaging around in his billowy robes for something as the four teachers watched him curiously.

With a muttered, "Aha!" he produced something from his pocket, held tightly in his hand. The teachers looked at it and McGonagall nearly combusted.

"No," Snape said before Professor McGonagall could say anything, disgust clear on his sallow face. "No," he repeated in case no one heard him the first time.

"Yes," Dumbledore said cheerfully, waving his fist at them. "Now go ahead and choose."

"Headmaster, with all due respect, we are _not_ going to sort a student by drawing straws!" Sprout said quite firmly, prodding at the brightly coloured slips of paper. "We've put up with whole idea of admitting a wielder here are Hogwarts but I think that this is where we draw the line. We cannot sort any student without the use of the Sorting hat."

"Well," Dumbledore said, glancing back at the silent Duo, "It's either this, or we let Duo choose."

There was a thick silence for a moment as each of the teachers turned to look at Duo with a horrified expression. Duo would have laughed if he didn't feel so anxious. Not scared, definitely not scared, but anxious.

"I'll take my chances with the straws," Snape said suddenly and he reached forward and snatched a straw.

* * *

Dumbledore knew very well how the teachers were feeling. He realised exactly how annoying he could be at times, as Snape so often implied and McGonagall so often thought. But friendly obnoxiousness was a valuable trait when used at the right time. Usually he enjoyed watching them squirm.

Snape was on the verge of begging and pleading. He wanted beg the headmaster to keep the brat as far away as possible. He wouldn't touch him with a twenty-metre barge pole if it could be avoided. _'Merlin, please give the boy to Minerva,'_ he prayed._ 'Or to anybody for that manner.' _He glanced at the head of Gryffindor, who was standing stiffly by Dumbledore's side. As if feeling Professor Snape's glare, she turned to face him slightly and her eyes hardened.

"Well," Dumbledore said. McGonagall bristled visibly as he spoke. "Let's see who will be welcoming… " There was a slight emphasis on the word. "… Mr. Maxwell into their house." He snapped spindly fingers and one of the straws, grasped in one horrified professor's hands, disappeared in a plume of pleasant smelling smoke.

Triumph and relief were two feelings Snape was very familiar with. One could never escape the Dark Lord enough times for the joy that he was still alive to fade away. And now, to his gratitude to the powers above, triumph and relief flooded his entire being.

McGonagall's fist still remained clenched as if she still had the straw inside her hand. She looked as if she was about to try and catch the smoke and attempt to turn it back into the straw. She glared at the Potions master, as if getting landed with Duo was somehow his fault. Perhaps it was. Perhaps some unknown wizarding deity was feeling particularly generous towards the greasy, stupid, fart headed...

Snape had to fight the urge to do something undignified, like flip her the middle finger. He settled for a smirk that was dangerously close to a grin.

A flood couldn't have dampened Dumbledore's spirits. "Gryffindor it is! Looks like you have a new house member, Minerva," he said jovially, clapping his hands. "Now, Duo. If you have any problems with your housemates, you should talk to Professor McGonagall about it. Naturally you can talk to anyone, but… "

Duo had tuned him out. All the positivity he had been feeling since breakfast had been squashed. His housemistress' expression was no better than Mr. Ollivander's and he was stuck feeling like some monster again. _'If I have any problems… yeah, like I can talk to her about it.' _He doubted that she'd even open a door for stood up slowly, his legs tingling. Or maybe he was still lightheaded due to all weird shit he was being forced to experience. _'Three weeks,' _he thought resolutely. It had almost become like a mantra to get him through this.

Not bothering to look at her new charge, McGonagall sniffed and marched out, her head up high and her mouth a firm, bloodless line.

* * *

**AN **Short stupid chapter this time. Thank you so much for all the reviews guys. I actually didn't expect to hear from anyone because it's been ridiculously long. So yeah, two chapters in one month? Crazy. Hamster wheel analogy stolen shamelessly from **Capricious Purple Clarity's** Harry Potter and the Secret Link. I did try to find a different way to describe colonies, but I failed quite miserably. Please do go read that one if you haven't already. (I think there is no such thing as a crossover fan that hasn't read HPatSL.) Don't waste your time here!

Please do review, I pump out chapters faster that way. Ohoho I'm so excited about the next chapter ahhh.


	6. Chapter 6: Christmas Greetings

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 6****: Christmas Greetings**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly the odd vulgar joke from Duo.)

* * *

Bad sorting experience aside, the next week passed by in a kaleidoscope of adventures, lessons and evenings bursting with laughter. The mornings were spent romping through the snowy grounds and trying to charm snowballs to devastate Harry's armies of tiny snow people, which were created with the help of Dobby. "Launch!" Duo would yell and tens of snowballs would fly haphazardly into the air. Due to Duo's shifty wand work, most would hit Harry rather than the advancing snow forces. Duo was still happy with this result, even if his snow fort was quickly and inevitably overrun and seized by team Potter.

They'd return to the common room, freezing and soaked to the bone. Hogwarts snow had the annoying tendency of forcing its way into the deep recesses of even your socks, so the boys would have to strip to their boxers and undershirts and sit in front of the fire, teeth chattering on the mugs of steaming hot chocolate. The number of female Gryffindors staying that Christmas was a big fat zero, so modesty was not required.

It was actually kind of fun, Duo found himself admitting. The shock of having been hurled back hundreds of years had dulled and the lack of electronics was no longer discomforting. Duo had flung the doors of his mind open and had pretty much trampled on his sense of disbelief. This was necessary, otherwise he'd be drawing his gun at every tiny surprise and he'd become almost as trigger-happy as Heero. The result of this was an overcurious and easily entertained Duo. He happily bantered with an overbearing knight on a fat little pony in a portrait one morning and only became more amused as Sir Cadogan became more infuriated. ("Spawn of the devil!" "Hahaha, thanks!")

His afternoons belonged to the grand pursuit of knowledge. Duo had felt very nervous before his first lesson: Herbology. Harry had hastily reassured him that Professor Sprout wouldn't be waiting for him with a pitchfork or torch. "She won't bite!" Harry had laughed, pushing a protesting Duo down the snowy path to the greenhouses.

She didn't bite, but goddamn, her daffodils did.

At first, poor Professor Sprout had been absolutely _terrified_ of him. She jumped so much whenever he spoke that the soil on her hat fell off in a fine shower, like a brown veil around her face. But as the lesson continued, it dawned on her that Duo wouldn't spontaneously explode and was that he was actually genuinely interested in her subject. After potting a family of North American Spitting Cacti without any major injuries, Professor Sprout even seemed impressed at Duo's deft handiwork.

The only incident that marred the otherwise productive first lesson was the death of an Energeia Orchid, a flower particularly sensitive to magic and stored it in its buds. Professor Sprout had wanted him to gently squeeze and massage the waxy white petals to circulate the magic around its tiny veins. As soon as Duo had neared it, the plant had shuddered, blackened and died. Duo hadn't been surprised. He had actually been waiting for something like that and cast a worried glance at the Herbology professor.

She had been disappointed, irritated, but not angry. "I'll have to place another order," she sighed, moving the corpse away. "If this happens with every level 5 plant, then please don't go to greenhouses 4 and up. Am I understood?"

Duo couldn't nod fast enough. As much as he claimed to be the God of Death, he didn't particularly fancy accidentally murdering magical plants.

Defence against the Dark Arts was fun, if a little dangerous. Professor Elffrost took him through basic disarming spells, shields and stunning in rapid succession. Though Duo learnt quickly and though he knew his wand movements and pronunciations, his magic was a little erratic. Actually, scratch that out_. _It was very erratic. He was unable to control the power output or direction of his attacks and his wand pretty much blew up with every "Stupefy!_"_ Professor Elffrost's classroom ended up taking more damage than anything else.

The good professor told him not to worry and just to hope that he was pitted against a very large enemy, so that Duo definitely wouldn't miss. _'Something like an elephant. Or a space station. Or a moon,' _Duo thought morosely, glaring at his pendant. The cold iron just shuddered angrily from its confines. _'Yeah, yeah, shut up.' _

Charms could only be described as a fiasco. Duo figured that his problems were generally in the wishy-washy wand waving areas. At least in Defence against the Dark Arts, he could run around a little. Duo had beaten poor Professor Flitwick into near-unconsciousness by causing wayward items to zoom around uncontrollably. Even levitating pillows became dangerous in the same way a runaway-train was and the professor had taken to bearing a helmet and a shield during the lessons. As for their relationship, he couldn't even speak to Duo without a break in his squeaky voice.

Care of Magical Creatures was more Trowa's thing, Duo decided as he ran from rampaging hippogriffs. Divination was a no-go as all he saw in the crystal ball was a warped image of his own face. Astronomy was nostalgic, Arithmacy was dull and Duo ended up correcting the Muggle Studies professor on several accounts.

Concerning Transfigurations and Potions, saying that Duo was apprehensive about them was an understatement. Professor Dumbledore had wisely decided that Duo should first have a lesson or two with Mrs. Elffrost before tackling the Snape-McGonagall tag team. "You can prepare by reading," the headmaster had advised him. In other words, _'Those people don't fuck around.'_

And so, to Duo's delight, he had managed to earn a grudging '_he's okay'_ from few of the teachers after a week, which was pleasant.

Evenings were spent agonising about homework by the fire. Duo was sometimes tempted just to doss off. After all, there were only two weeks left of his imprisonment, so good grades would hardly matter. The problem was that it was all so _interesting_. The delinquent part of his brain was dismayed when he read more about Cheering Charms than he had meant to. It was just a shame that his wand didn't really want to cooperate with him.

"I was swishing and flicking for all I was worth but the damn things still wouldn't go where I wanted them to," Duo complained. I've even been forced to practice outside so I won't break anything. It's _cold _outside."

Harry grinned over his Potions essay, remembering his own first Charms lesson. "Were you saying the spell right?"

Duo looked him, eyes huge and lower lip wibbling. "Of course I was saying it right! How hard is it to say? Flitwick was yelling it in my ear every five seconds. Wingardium Leviosa, Wingardium Leviosa… " He made little jerky motions with his wand and the homework Harry was working on shot out from under his hand and nearly into the fireplace. "You see what I mean?" Duo wailed as Harry scrambled to retrieve his precious essay.

"You absolute prat," Harry replied, trying to get his heart to slow down and smoothing out the crinkles in the parchment.

"Sorry for almost incinerating your much loved homework." Duo rolled his eyes. "Since it's no longer in pristine shape, I guess your chances of having sexy time with Snapey under the mistletoe are gone."

Harry's appalled face and the strangled gagging sound he made were enough to send Duo into fits of laughter.

On Harry's end, he had discovered that Duo actually served as a pretty good temporary replacement Hermione and, inexplicably, that Duo probably knew a lot more about theory than he did. Duo, having been trained to withhold a lot of potentially life-saving information in a short time, couldn't understand how Harry could not remember how to turn a shoe into a shuttlecock. "It makes sense. Kind of," Duo had said, rapping Harry on the head with a textbook.

"How does this make sense?" Harry said, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"It just does. It says here to try and establish a relationship between the items you're trying to transfigure. Use your braiiinnnnn."

This advice helped Harry make his shoe slightly smaller and feathery. Duo picked it up and studied it with a straight face. "I'd like to see someone try to play badminton with this." He got a cushion in the face for that.

So while Harry found Duo's inhuman memory unbelievable, Duo was having trouble imagining Harry's adventures in the years before.

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Duo said one day, piling his plate high with sausages. "Over the course of your attendance here, you've fought a dragon, defeated this humongo snake, defeated Voldiewarts _twice, _uh, traveled back in time and set a framed convict free-"

Harry choked on his potato as Duo relayed his history. When he could breathe again, he glanced around the Great Hall to make sure no one was within hearing distance. "_Wait_! How… who told you all this?"

"Oh a little guy by the name of Dobby. Dude!" Duo latched on to Harry's shoulders. "You're awesome!"

"Well, I didn't do it all by myself!" Harry said, flustered and nervous. "I had help, my friends helped me and – and I'm going to kill Dobby." Harry didn't even bother asking him how he had met the house elf. He'd just get some incomprehensible answer.

"Please don't," Duo said, pouting. "I like the guy. Getting him drunk is fun. Anyway, if Voldemort _really_ has the hots for you, then why doesn't he just come here and destroy you?"

"Well, Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place anywhere. Also, it helps that Dumbledore is the only wizard Voldemort's scared of."

"Really?" Duo glanced at the headmaster, who was sitting serenely at the high table, draped in sparkling sequined robes of blue and orange. "_Really?_"

"Really," Harry affirmed, having witnessed Dumbledore's crackling rage when he found out that 'Mad-Eyed Moody' wasn't Moody after all.

"Cool."

* * *

Crunch time. Duo stood outside of Professor Elffrost's office, stared at the door for a second, sighed, scratched his head, sighed again, smoothed down his robes and finally knocked. He really, _really _wasn't looking forward to cold iron lessons. Magic was tough but it wasn't painful. Cold iron, on the other hand, tried to kill him whenever it got the chance.

"Come in." It probably wasn't on purpose, but Mrs. Elffrost's voice was the most foreboding sounding sound ever.

Professor Elffrost's office was a comfortable room, full of wicker and wood and bright winter light. Colourful masks grinned down at him from the walls and a tribal styled rug with a beaded fringe took up the floor. A fire glowed in the corner of the room and the marble mantelpiece was nearly bursting with moving photographs. Professor Elffrost was sitting in a wicker chair with a long wooden pipe in his mouth and a newspaper nestled over his crossed legs. Mrs. Elffrost was making tea in a squat china teapot.

"Hello, Duo," she said, without looking up. It was the first time they had spoken since Diagon Alley. "How are you faring?"

"Not too shabbily. Your husband's pretty kick-ass," Duo said, shutting the door behind him.

"Cheers." Professor Elffrost raised his teacup in a toast.

"That is good to hear," Mrs. Elffrost said. "Because Minerva has been avoiding me ever since she found out that I am a wielder."

Duo winced. "Ouch." That didn't bode well for him and his future lessons with Professor McGonagall suddenly looked bleaker. "Well I haven't had a Transfiguration lesson yet, but she doesn't exactly have the hots for me either."

"I can have a word with her if you want," Professor Elffrost said, looking up over his paper. "She's being ridiculous-"

Mrs. Elffrost waved the offer off and set the tea on to a tray. "Do not worry about it. She will come round I am sure. Now, Duo. Let us go to an empty classroom."

"So what're we going to do?" Duo asked, trotting after her down the corridor.

"Talk. I have to explain to you what exactly being a wielder entails."

"Great. I just love talking."

"I have noticed." Mrs. Elffrost chose a small classroom with worn sofas and a coffee table rather than a usual blackboard and desks set-up. "This room is used more for theoretical discussions rather than practical demonstrations," Mrs. Elffrost explained, placing the tea tray down and pouring a cup. "Duo?"

He accepted the tea and sipped it. The sharp scent and taste of mint filled his senses and it was as if some part of his brain exploded. He suddenly felt a lot more awake. "Okay," he said, blinking rapidly for some reason. "Fire away, teach'."

"Pay attention, I am only going to tell you this once. And do not write anything down, in case someone discovers your notes."

"I'm not stupid."

"Shut up and listen. In order to understand cold iron, you have to understand the nature of magic." She held up three fingers. "There are different kinds. One is natural magic. This is the magic that constantly surrounds us. It ebbs and flows in invisible currents and streams and is attracted to areas where there is a high density of wizards. Usually.

"The second is processed magic. This is natural magic after passing through a wand or after having been altered for a potion or for a magic device. Basically, it is natural magic that has been artificially tampered with, either by humans or by magical creatures.

"The third is innate magic. This is what separates muggles and wizards. Without innate magic, you cannot manipulate natural magic. Some people have more innate magic than others, which gives them an advantage in terms of power. Is this all clear?"

That sounded simple. Natural and processed magic were like fuels and energy and innate magic was like a key. "Yeah, gotcha'."

"Cold iron can affect all these magics. It can direct or cut off the flow of natural magic, it can negate processed magic and spells and it can, well, siphon a wizard dry of innate magic. That is your greatest and worst weapon. Without innate magic, wizards become muggles and that is most probably their worst fear, other than death. Now, there is no code of honour among wielders, not that there are many of us, but," She looked him straight in the eye, her expression one of utter solemnity and she enunciated each word clearly. "I do urge you to leave Wielder's Theft as _a last resort_."

"Wielder's Theft? Is that what they call it?"

"It makes us sound like petty criminals." Mrs. Elffrost laughed, but Duo detected a little bitterness in that laugh. "But you must understand the importance of magic to this people. In wizarding households, _everything _is accomplished by magic. Cooking, washing, travel, communication, everything. Though wizards are not necessarily anti-muggle, most, if not all, do consider themselves vastly superior.

"Moving swiftly on," she continued. "Cold iron is formed under special circumstances. You need a wizard, iron and lightning. Mix them all up and you get cold iron and a wielder. It is not as simple as that however. Back in times when wielders were respected figures, some would try create cold iron artificially. They would fail. Cold iron can only be formed through nature and through chance. It is uncertain whether we have any shared traits that improve this chance, but Pig's records show that wielders are created indiscriminately.

"Now to practicalities. Learning to control cold iron will have three main stages. First, we will go through the functions of your contacts and redirecting natural magic. Then we work on manipulating the form of cold iron and lastly, negating magic. I aim to have you completely proficient in wielding cold iron by April."

Well that was just too bad. "Sorry, Mrs. Elffrost. I'm leaving in two weeks, remember?"

"Oh yes. Forgive me." The sarcasm was cutting.

Duo frowned. She still wasn't taking him seriously. He leaned back into the sofa, arms crossing behind his head, head tossed back in a lofty manner. He pinched the bridge of his nose with exasperation. "Why are we bothering with this? Can't I just learn stuff that'd be useful for me back home? Wizards don't exist where I'm from, so I don't see the point-"

"If you want to leave this lesson, fine," Mrs. Elffrost said sharply. "If you do, you will not learn to control the side effects of cold iron and it will end up consuming your sanity."

As she said that, the voices murmured from their confines, as if to remind Duo of their presence. There was a pause as they regarded each other; he looking down his nose at her and she staring at him intently with neon green eyes. Half a minute passed and Duo realised, as shameful as it was, that his stubbornness wouldn't actually get him anywhere. He sighed and sat up straight. "Man, you really don't take any shit, do you?" he said, respect hiding somewhere in his voice. "Alright. Let's do this."

"I am glad you have decided to work with me." There was a definite unspoken _'So stop your whinging and suck it up' _somewhere in that sentence. "We have to calibrate your contacts first. Stand up and move about five metres away from me." They stood and faced each other. She pulled out her wand and muttered, "Lumos." The tip flared with a red light and then dimmed, like the end of a cigarette. She stretched out her arm and held it above her head. "Stare at it directly…okay. " She clicked something that looked scarily like a detonator but all Duo felt was a tingling around his eyes. She moved her arm to the left. "Look again…" _Click. _"And again…" _Click. _

They continued with such exercises, mostly involving Duo looking at something and then maybe blinking. But it was necessary, Mrs Elffrost assured him. "After all," she said while making him read an eye chart. "You do not want your perception failing you. Pig's inventions can sometimes be faulty, so we must take all precautions possible. One time, someone threw a cricket ball at me and I believed it to be two metres farther away than it really was and that turned out to be very painful. Painful in the way a cracked skull is painful."

After fifteen minutes, she declared that the calibration was over and all they had to do now was activate the contacts.

"About damn time," Duo muttered, eyes watering after the eyeball aerobics she had led him through. "Okay, what now?"

"Close your eyes and gently press against your eyelids. Do not open them until I tell you to… good. Now, _slowly_, open your eyes. Slowly! I do not want you to blind yourself in your first lesson."

Though he took her advice and only opened his eyes a fraction of a centimetre, he was still overwhelmed by the sudden white that pierced his vision like lasers. After a couple seconds of careful squinting, he raised his eyelids and was nearly blinded by the circus of colour that flowed around the entire room. He couldn't even make out Mrs. Elffrost's figure due to the sparkles and glowing veils of light that swooped around him. He had to close his eyes again, but the loops and weaves of light and colour were burned into his retina. Duo felt like he was standing in a sea of rainbows, which would have been quite nice if he weren't so disorientated.

"Wow," he said, reaching a hand out and letting a small stream of magic slip through his fingers. He expected to feel perhaps a small burst of heat or breeze at least, but there was nothing. The magic ignored him when he tried to grab at it and passed easily through his hands. "This is cool."

"I am glad that you feel that way," said Mrs. Elffrost's voice from the other side of the room. Duo frowned and turned to face her. When did she move? "Well, in your current state," she said. "I doubt that we would get much done today." Duo heard the door open and belatedly realised that she was going to leave him here. Alone. While he was blinded by _magic_.

"Hey wait!"

"Have fun!" she said with the most glee Duo had ever heard and she slammed the door.

"Goddamn- stop!" Duo made to follow her, stumbling blindly into the colourful mass of light. He tripped. "ARGH, FU-"

'_This is so not cool,'_ Duo thought, as he lay sprawled on the floor. _'I'm going to kill her.' _While dusting himself off, he noticed that, while everything else was just light and sparkles, the amulet around his neck was sparkle-free. _'That's interesting,' _he thought, holding it up to his eye level.

He took it off and stuck the amulet into one of the denser clouds of swirling magic. Curiously, the coloured lights shuddered and slowly moved away from the amulet and a clear membrane of non-magic formed around it.

'_So the cold iron's repelling the magic. Huh. What if…' _Duo clicked the amulet open and carefully popped the marble out and winced as the voices piped up in his head. He ignored it and thrust the cold iron back into the magic stream.

The response was instantaneous. The magic exploded outwards, away from the marble pinched between his fingers and produced a large window through which Duo could see his surroundings clearly.

As he moved it around, the streams of magic would scatter away and join different streams. It was kind of fun, messing around with the intricate network of magic like a train set. He didn't have any control of where the magic went or what connected to what and tried in vain to direct the streams but soon gave up.

After a while, the glitter fog seemed to dim slightly and he was able to make out the vague shapes of furniture. He could definitely see the door, so navigation around Hogwarts shouldn't be too hard. Hopefully.

The cold iron reacted violently when he tried to slip it back into the amulet. Duo glared at the hissing marble. "Get back in there," he said out loud as he tried to force it in. Small wisps of magic jumped further away from the cold iron as it started to twitch and grow painfully hot. Duo managed to wrestle it into the groove and burnt his fingers in the process.

He sighed with relief as the voices retreated again. "Awesome."

Getting back into the tower was manageable. Vaguely. He only walked into two wrong rooms and into one door. Unfortunately Sir Cadogan saw him as Duo smacked his face into the door and the knight fell off his fat little pony, roaring with laughter.

Finally, _finally, _he found the portrait of the Fat Lady and carefully climbed through. Harry was sitting by the fire, writing something and Duo brightened when he saw him. "Harry!" he said, managing not to fall over on the way to an armchair. "Finally, something that isn't covered in rainbows."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked. He didn't like the way Duo was squinting at everything. And almost walking into things.

"Magic, Harry!" Duo said, waving his arms, smacking one into a bookcase. "Ow. I can see it! And it makes everything look funky."

"Right," Harry said and tried to continue writing his letter but couldn't concentrate because Duo seemed to be staring at him for some reason. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," he said, shrugging offhandedly. "By the way, is your head alright? You don't have a headache or anything, do you?"

"No. Why?"

"Oh, just wondering," Duo said, looking away. He didn't want to mention that, actually, the magic by Harry's forehead was black and rotten and crackling.

Yeah. He'd have to check that out.

* * *

It was a little before dawn on Christmas day when Duo heard the sounds of a trespasser. The first thing Duo thought as he threw himself out of bed was, _'I really need a new mattress.'_ Heavenly soft beds were amazing and all, but they weren't that great for sleeping light. Also he'd have a hell of a time getting used to roughing it back home.

He landed in a quick crouch and launched forward, meaning to tackle the intruder by the midriff. His attack was cut short when instead of coming into contact with a waist, his arms grappled thin air and he unwittingly head-butted the insanely short person instead. They both tumbled to the ground, Duo clutching his forehead in surprise. He recovered quickly, yelled at Harry to get up and pinned the person's surprisingly thin and wrinkly arms to his tiny back.

Though sleep-dazed, Harry had enough sense to turn on a lamp. As light flooded the room, Duo's suspicions turned out to be true.

He released the extremely shaken Dobby with an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry," he said, hefting the house elf to his feet. "I guess you've learnt your lesson. Don't poof in and out of the dorm like that! Use the portrait like a normal… uh… person. And why the hell are you creeping around at five in the morning?"

Dobby shook his head frantically, his oversized ears slapping him in the face with a loud thumping noise. "Dobby didn't mean – Dobby didn't know - " He froze and then with a cry, started slamming his head into the leg of Duo's bed.

"What! Hey, _hey_! Stop that!" Duo wrestled the insane elf away from the furniture. Harry pulled himself out of bed with considerable difficulty to help.

Worn out by his efforts, Dobby faltered for a second. Duo and Harry took their chance and yanked hard and the elf released the bed with a wail. Duo hoisted the elf up by the armpits and held him up in the air. "Right. _Without_ hurting yourself, tell me why you're here. And then we can all go back to sleep and I can get back to my dream of setting things on fire."

"Sorry, sorry, Dobby is sorry, sorr-"

"We're good, we're good! Seriously. What's up?"

From out of nowhere (or from within of the filthy tea cosy, but Duo preferred to believe in 'nowhere') Dobby shyly produced two crudely wrapped presents.

… Oh good grief. Why at this time in the morning?

"Uh… thank you?"

Dobby beamed at him, giving Duo the impression of rather grotesque, bald Troll-doll. "Master Duo and Master Harry is very welcome. Dobby made them especially. Took a long time to pick the right parts. Dobby… "

With careful words and persuasion, Duo was finally able to coax the emotional house elf back to the kitchens or wherever they lived.

Where did they live anyway? This was a question to be answered another time, which was preferably not at the crack of dawn.

Duo crawled back into bed, already half asleep. If there wasn't a base around to blow up, then there was really no reason to be awake. The bed was really too soft for his liking, but it was ridiculously warm…

He was woken up again in what felt like seconds with a pillow to a face. He squinted crankily. "What!" he said, as Harry scrambled out of bed.

"It's Christmas!"

'_Oh Gods, make the insane wizard stop.' _Duo turned over in his bed and pulled the cover over his head. "No. I got woken up by a crazy house elf and am not going to let a crazy wizard do the same."

"Christmas!" Harry insisted.

Duo cracked an eye open and glanced in Harry's direction. There was a small mountain of gifts at the foot of Harry's bed. Harry had already dived into the pile. The pilot sighed and closed his eyes again. He knew for a fact that there wouldn't be such a pile by his bed. He wasn't upset at the idea. He wasn't used to getting gifts even at home anyway.

Another pillow sailed through the air, hitting Duo square in the back of the head.

"Get up! Presents!"

Finally sitting up, Duo huffed the bangs out his face as he said irately, "What? Do you want me to _watch_ you open – oh." To his complete and utter surprise, Harry wasn't the only one who got presents that morning.

* * *

Harry felt extremely guilty. Acting like a child in front of a boy who had almost no friends or family here really wasn't the most mature thing to do. Harry was no stranger to loneliness and he knew that being alone was one of the most painful things he had ever experienced. Duo, to his credit, had shouldered Harry's excitement with amazing patience and grace. He didn't even seem at all ruffled at the massive difference in size between their respective piles.

But that wasn't the worst part.

Harry had come across a small, soft package neatly wrapped in parchment and string. The script on the small tag was unfamiliar. '_How this place functions without duct tape, I do not know. Anyway, Merry Christmas!'_ Harry felt his heart drop as he realised that he had failed to get Duo something.

Duo batted his eyelashes. "Come on! What are you waiting for? Open it!"

Harry did so, carefully. His fingers touched felt and he produced a small stuffed doll of some sort out of the package. Harry studied the doll's white face. It had slitted red eyes and only two lines for a nose out of thread. There was no hair and a snaky little tongue protruded from its frowning mouth. A curled moustache completed the doll's evil expression. "This isn't who I think it is, is it?" Harry asked dryly, inspecting the neat handiwork. He wasn't really sure what to say. _'Thank you for a plush toy of the chap who murdered my parents'_ didn't seem right.

"It is," Duo chirped, plucking the toy from Harry's fingers. "It's a stress device. Whenever you're angry with it, you can do this!" He threw the little doll into the air. Quickly, Duo's arm whipped around, flashed silver, and with a _thunk,_ the Voldiedoll was pinned to the wall with a knife jutting out of its head. Grinning at Harry's gaping mouth, Duo added, "Or we could douse it with kerosene and set it alight. Whichever you prefer. I'd have to make you another one though, but I should be quicker at making these things now, after all the practice I had making this one. Man, you don't want to see the mangled brethren of this guy."

"How – why do you have a knife on you?"

Duo shrugged. "I'm a paranoid little bastard. I'm bound to be always armed in someway or another. But never mind that!" Duo's eyes gleamed as he beheld the sight in front of him. "Presents!"

Harry couldn't take his eyes off the impaled doll. Merlin, Duo had even found red stuffing that looked vaguely similar to blood. From that distance at least. "How on earth did you know what he looked like?"

Duo started. "What, he really looks like that?"

"Minus the moustache. And maybe the tongue."

Filing that revelation away in his head for later observation, Duo shrugged and turned to his haul.

There were only two small presents in Duo's pile. One was wrapped in gaudy red and purple paper (courtesy of a certain house elf) and the other looked like a pocketbook. He picked up Dobby's first. After opening it, Duo's face was dominated by a grin. "Look Harry!" he waved the present at him. "I don't need to borrow your underwear anymore." It appeared that the good house elf had taken it upon himself to knit Duo some bright green y-fronts.

Harry blanched. "You what!"

"I'm joking you fool."

The second turned out to be a small, "Who's that from?" Harry asked, while comparing his own pair of woolen undies to Duo's. _'These would itch.' _

"Mrs Elffrost. It's some sort of book." He unwrapped a small, blue tinged book. The front cover featured an illustration of a tree stump and was bordered by twisting vines. A skull was nestled at the top of the vines. "_The Tales of Beedle the Bard_," Duo read out. "Have you heard of this?"

"Ron's mentioned it once or twice. I think it's some sort of fairytale."

"I see Mrs. Elffrost has noticed my childlike and innocent demeanor," Duo said with dry humour and he flicked through it. He noticed a message written on the inside. "Hm? '_Turn to Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump?'_ Great, more homework. Not like I don't have enough going on with preparation for Transfigurations. I guess I'll have to read this before I see Mrs. Elffrost." Duo put the underwear and the book away and turned back to Harry. "So what's on the agenda today then, captain?"

"Er…" Harry didn't really know. They could go have a snowball fight or something. If he had been with Ron, they would have spent the morning exploring their presents. He winced when the guilt for not getting Duo anything reared up in his chest again.

Then something came to mind. It was something that only Harry could give him.

"I've just had an idea. A great idea. A bloody fantastic idea."

"Oh Gods, what?"

"I'm going to teach you how to fly."

**End Chapter 6**

* * *

**AN: **Exposition in a Harry Potter fic from someone other than Hermione or Dumbledore? Scandalous. The next chapter will hopefully be out next week around this time. (A schedule omg.) Thank you for your reviews and I hope you review again. A couple people have asked whether the other lads will be joining Duo. They will definitely be featured in the fic, but they won't be having classes with Duo if that's what some people are hoping. (Sorry.) But I hope that doesn't deter anyone from still reading! Thanks guys!


	7. Chapter 7: Flying

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 7: Flying**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly the odd vulgar joke from Duo.)

* * *

It smelt. Bad. Both Harry and Duo wrinkled their noses as they stepped on to the Quidditch pitch, brooms balanced on their shoulders. "Well, this is kind of gross," Duo said, toeing at the frozen ground. Something went _squoosh _beneath his foot. "Fertilizer?"

"Dragon dung," Harry confirmed. Great piles of the stuff sat steaming around them. Hagrid must have been there before them. "Are you ready to fly?"

_Flying. _That was something that Duo had actually been looking forward to ever since he had squashed his nose against the window of _Quality Quidditch Supplies _in Diagon Alley. Not that he knew what Quidditch was, but there was plenty of time to find out. When Harry handed him a broom, Duo held it with as much reverence as he could afford to give a household cleaning device.

"So how does it work?" Duo asked, wanting to be up in the air as soon as possible.

"Er," Harry said, trying to remember back to his first lesson with Madam Hooch. "I just got on and pushed up," he admitted. "You just _know_ what to do." He mounted his Firebolt and gently took off to demonstrate what he meant. "But some people are better at it than others," he warned, thinking back to Neville's first disastrous experience.

"That's okay. I _belong_ in the sky," Duo said confidently and swung a leg over the Comet 260. He mimicked Harry's movement and pushed off the ground. To his utter delight and surprise, he hovered a good metre about the grass. _'This…' _he thought, in awe. _'This is how humans should travel.' _Yes, his hands were freezing and yes, he would be very sore in a certain place later but he was _flying_! Not in a plane or a shuttle or a Gundam. On a broom. "What now?"

"Just will yourself forward. Tilt the handle to change direction." Harry grinned. Duo's childlike delight was contagious. He swooped down close to Duo and came to a rest beside him. "Not too sharply though!" Watching Duo on a broom was like watching a newborn colt stumble blindly around a barnyard. Duo had an expression of almost painful concentration, the tip of his tongue peeking out of the side of his mouth and Harry observed with amusement as Duo struggled to turn around.

"Is it this - _hard_ - for you?" Duo grunted as he turned sharply. The broom shuddered and refused to straighten out.

"Not really. I don't even have to think about it."

The braided boy watched jealously as Harry circled him in wide, lazy swoops. _'Blasted cold iron,' _he thought and it twitched under his shirt in retaliation. He really wished he could just take it off as that would probably improve his performance by infinity percent but knew in the long run, it wouldn't help. Mrs. Elffrost had forbidden him to cave to the temptation.

Not that she would know whether he did or not, and not that it _mattered_ as he was leaving in two weeks. But he had given his word and Duo Maxwell does not lie. So the bitch-metal stayed on. Mrs. Elffrost encouraged him to observe how natural magic changed into processed magic whenever he had the opportunity, and he could see, after pressing harder on his contacts, how the bright ribbons of natural magic fed into the handle of the broom in front of him. From the brush of the broom, it emitted puffs of iridescent cloud that dissipated after a couple seconds. _'Just like a car, but prettier.' _Whether it damaged the environment, Duo didn't know. Comparing the speed with which his Comet 260 'ate' the magic with Harry's Firebolt, Duo felt he was sitting on a panda while Harry was racing on a great white shark. A flying great white sky shark.

It _did _get easier, to Duo's relief. After fifteen minutes of thinking, _'Move, move, move,' _constantly, the broom jerked around in a slightly smoother manner and he elevated to three metres. He would have liked to be up in that cloudless sky where Harry was zooming around like a fly but he could afford to take it slowly for now.

He was _flying_.

Meanwhile, Harry was enjoying the cold clear air against his face and the delighted whoops from Duo down below, when his scar suddenly prickled. That was the only warning he had before a burst of joy erupted in his chest and he had to suppress the urge to laugh manically. Even so, his face twisted into a grin and he started shaking from trying to smother the insane giggles bubbling up inside his chest.

'_What's happening?' _Harry thought, panicking as his vision went hazy, blackening around the edges. He felt sick, as if something was squeezing his insides. He lost control of his concentration and of his broom and twisted downwards in a fast fall. Harry tried to regain his focus but all he could think of was how _happy he was that he had found __**it**__ after months of searching_. He heard Duo shout his name as his stomach flew upwards and the frozen ground rushed up to meet him.

The ground twisted and flipped as something slammed into his side and long arms wrapped firmly around his middle. He blacked out as Voldemort's presence dribbled out from his mind.

* * *

When Duo looked up and saw that the magic around Harry's scar was visible from Duo's own pitiful height, he knew something was wrong. He was already concerned about the fact that the magic was the colour of burnt toast and that it crackled like bad static, but for it to be so strong that he could see it from all the way down here-

Then Harry fell.

Duo had seconds to act. Harry was falling fast, back arched towards the ground, robes whipping around his body. Duo urged the broom to move towards his falling friend and taking Harry's acceleration and wind drag into account, he pulled his feet up onto his broom and leapt towards him with a yell. His calculations thankfully proved correct and he grabbed at Harry's waist, pulling the limp body against him. He twisted and tried to protect him as much as possible from the unforgiving ground.

Luckily, they landed in a huge pile of fresh, steaming poo.

Duo lay there for a second, Harry's head against his chest as he savoured the warmth against his back. _'This is so gross,' _he thought. Then, '_There's poo in my hair.'_ He noted that the dragon dung was sparkling and had to fight the urge to laugh hysterically. _'Correction: magical poo.'_

"Oi, you okay? Hey!" And Harry was unconscious for some reason. Excellent. He must have really zoned out up there or these brooms were more dangerous than Duo thought. _'It's a good thing I managed to get a hang of this flying thing,' _Duo thought, shuddering to think about what could have happened.

But that aside, the current problem was that Harry was knocked out and Duo had to fix that. He took a small handful of the life-saving dragon dung and sniffed it. _'That should wake him up,' _he thought before unceremoniously shoving it up Harry's nose.

Harry twitched and spluttered back to life. "What're you doing!" he choked out, gagging as if he were dying.

"Amazingly useful stuff, dragon shit," Duo said, grinning with relief. He shrugged but still sounded far too pleased with himself. "The ammonia in it will wake you right up. Also it saves your life when you fall off a broom."

"Oh. _Oh_." Everything came flooding back: the burning scar, the unexplained happiness and the drop. "What happened?" He could understand why _he _was sitting in the pile of fertilizer but didn't see why Duo was perched happily beside him.

"Well, if I just let you fall, you would have landed over _there_." Duo pointed to where Harry's Firebolt was lying. "On the cold and unforgiving ground. So I nudged you a little in the right direction."

"Oh." So _that's_ why he had woken up with Duo's arm still wrapped tightly around him. "Thank you," Harry said, realising that if Duo hadn't managed to get to him in time, he would have broken his neck and worse.

His thanks were graciously accepted. "You know, it'd be so much easier to take you seriously if you didn't have faeces smeared above your mouth," Duo said, amused when Harry hurriedly wiped his face with his sleeve. "No, no, just here." Duo gestured as all Harry did was succeed in spreading it around more. "Uh, never mind."

"I can wash and wash but I'll never feel clean again," Harry muttered as Duo cackled wickedly.

They both pulled themselves out the pile, backs covered with muck. "What happened up there?" Duo asked, after collecting the fallen brooms. "Something spooked your broom?"

"No it was, er…" Harry didn't really know himself. His scar had hurt before, but only when he was in close proximity to Voldemort or when he had dreams. But dreams were only supposed to come at night and Voldemort _couldn't _be close. Or could he? And that rush of happiness he had felt was unlike anything he had felt before. It had been completely alien as if it were another person's and Harry had a sinking suspicion as to who that person might be. "I have to speak with Professor Dumbledore about it," Harry said finally.

"Okay, that's cool. You want me to come?"

"I think I should see him alone," Harry said. He didn't really want many people knowing about the link he had with the Dark Lord, even if Duo didn't fully appreciate Voldemort and his values. "You go ahead back to the tower."

"Nah, I need to see Mrs. Elffrost anyway," Duo said. "I'll catch you later." He wanted to find out about the black energy he saw and still sensed around Harry's scar.

When he found her in Professor Elffrost's office and asked, Mrs. Elffrost's expression tightened and became more severe than usual. "Black magic? Oh, that poor boy," she said, with a surprising amount of sympathy.

"So what's the deal with that?"

"I cannot say for sure, but I know that it is not good. Also, I do not want to tell you more about Harry's past without his knowledge. I _can_ tell you that the colour black usually signifies a curse or dark magic. Are you absolutely sure that it is black?"

Duo was about to answer, when a portrait of a little girl interrupted them. "I beg pardon," she said, curtseying. "But Headmaster Dumbledore requests Professor Elffrost and Mr. Maxwell's presences in his office."

Mrs. Elffrost nodded. "I will tell him," she said. "Thank you." The rosy-cheeked girl curtseyed again and disappeared out of the picture.

"I'll never get used to that," Duo admitted, following the streams of magic around the portrait with his eyes. He had noticed that right before the girl entered the frame, the painting had flared slightly, as if heralding her arrival.

"Do not worry. You will. As for the black magic, I shall ask Pig about it the next time I see him. He will know more about it. If I were you, I would ask Harry himself about his scar and what it feels like."

Ten minutes later, Duo and Professor Elffrost got off the rotating stone staircase and stepped into Dumbledore's office. Harry was already sitting in front of Dumbledore's desk, fingers gripping the sides anxiously. Dumbledore looked sombre, the usual blue spark in his eyes replaced by a steely gaze.

"Juma," he said. "I have reason to believe that the Devil's Bone has been compromised. Voldemort has heard of its whereabouts and is pursuing it as we speak.

Professor Elffrost started, the whites of his widened eyes stark against his black skin. "It's been found? Impossible, no one knows-"

"I'm afraid that we can't be sure of that," Dumbledore said, sounding very sure of himself. "I believe that it would be best if we relocated it. I have on good account that it would be in danger should we leave it there." Duo noticed Harry shift slightly in his chair and knew that this 'good account' was a certain glasses-wearing, lightening-scarred friend of his.

After a moment, Professor Elffrost nodded slowly. "Very well," he said, his voice deep. "I'll contact its keepers and tell them be especially alert. I'll make arrangements for its transport."

Dumbledore sighed. "Thank you, Juma." Professor Elffrost swept out of the room, the beads around his neck rattling as he left. "Now, Harry, Duo, I'm afraid we have a serious matter to attend to."

"I thought it'd be something like that," Duo said lightly, slouching back in his chair. "What's the deal teach'?"

"There is a weapon Voldemort is after," Dumbledore said, not wasting time. "Juma has been put in charge of its safekeeping, but Voldemort has made his move a lot earlier than I anticipated. Thanks to Harry-" Here, the headmaster nodded gratefully at Harry. "I believe we have enough time to move it to a better hiding place."

"What's the weapon, Professor?" Harry asked, brow creased. "It isn't- it _can't _be something muggle. Right?"

"Oh no, Harry. The Devil's Bone is in no way muggle. In simplest terms, it is an artefact that gives the bearer the same powers and abilities as a wielder." The room went very quiet, the portraits were silent and even the many silver implements littered around the office were still.

'_The same powers as a wielder…' _

"Hey wait," Duo said, eyes widening. "So that would mean-"

"That he would be able to negate spells, magical fields, wards and so on with little effort," Dumbeldore said, fatigue lining his words as the implications sunk in. "The blood protection shielding you, Harry, would be nullified. He would also be able to target opponents that pose the greatest threat and relieve them of their wizarding ability."

'_Wielders' Theft,' _Duo thought, not liking at all how this was turning out. This weapon, the Devil's Bone, plus a megalomaniac with higher than average wizarding ability would result in a massive shitfest.

He also didn't like how Dumbledore was looking at him intensely, as if he was the only one who could stop this.

* * *

After that bombshell, Duo had to work a little to keep his emotions in check. He knew _exactly_ what the wily headmaster was doing – Duo had dealt with manipulative people before and, after all, what were the Gundam pilots other than weapons the doctors could manipulate to their liking? The 'sad old man' act had irritated Duo a little but the irritation was nothing compared to the guilt. Duo had whole-heartedly accepted that he would not be able to help out Harry and his crew. But that was before. Now Dumbledore had informed them that should Voldemort get his hands on the Devil's Bone, only wielders would be able to stand against him with any chance of success. And wielders were hard to come by.

He had been unable to look Harry in the eye after Dumbledore had requested once again for his assistance. "I'm sorry," he had said, worrying his lip with his bottom teeth. "But I can't. I have to go back."And once again, Dumbledore said that he understood that. But the slight waver in Duo's voice was enough to show that his resolve was being tugged at.

'_I can't stay,' _he thought miserably while flicking through the book Mrs. Elffrost had given him. _'I would, but I can't. The guys need me.' _Duo didn't doubt for one second that the other pilots wouldn't be able to handle whatever the war threw at them, but he still felt that he belonged there with them. It was _their _fight, all five of them. He couldn't just leave his comrades. _'I hope that they haven't been too worried,_' he thought and despite only having been away for a short while, he missed them terribly. Especially Heero.

Duo shook himself. He only had to hold out for a little longer and distract himself from these kinds of thoughts. He only managed to stop thinking about it that evening.

"So Dumbledore forced you to stay here this Christmas when you could have been hanging with your awesome godfather?" Duo asked when he saw Harry writing yet _another _letter to the infamous Snuffles. "What. That's not right."

Harry shrugged. "I don't mind." _'Anymore.' _"I'll see him again soon. Better than you being here by yourself right?"

"Yeah I gue- wait. Better than me- are you _babysitting _me?"

"What? No! I, erm." Harry's hesitation was an admission of _something_ and Duo knew that even if 'babysitting' wasn't the most apt description, Harry was being made to stay at Hogwarts on his account. "I'm awful with holiday homework," he offered lamely.

"Uh-huh."

"It's true!"

"Right."

"Look," Harry said, growing increasingly agitated at the way Duo's gaze cut right through him. "It's no big deal, I'm used to spending Christmas like this anyway. Besides, you're alright."

"I'm alright," Duo repeated somewhat disbelievingly.

"Yeah, I don't mind spending Christmas with you."

Duo was silent at this admission as Harry felt his cheeks flush and he stared resolutely at the parchment in front of him. After a week and a bit in Hogwarts, Duo was learning more about typical British character every day. From where he came from, the United Kingdom had been (mostly) dissolved after Scotland had seceded relatively early in the New Calendar, Ireland following quickly after. But after environmental problems and climate change threatened the islands and their shores, a sizable part of the population swiftly emigrated to the mainland and he couldn't really remember all the details. But the idea of the typical British gentleman had endured and Duo found himself comparing this world's Britons to his supposed own. One, teeth here wasn't nearly as bad as the stereotype made it out to be. Two, the weather was remarked upon an awful lot. Three, feelings were not shared very often, hence talking about the neutral topic of the weather instead. Especially feelings about the person in front of you.

"Well, gee, Harry. Thanks man. By the way, how far's that village from here?"

"Hogsmeade? Not too far. Why?"

"We're going shopping tomorrow."

"Okay?"

Duo's fox-like smile did nothing to reassure Harry at all.

"We are here for one main thing," Duo said the next day, New Year's Eve, with all the solemnness of a three-year-old. "Liquor." They were standing outside the wizarding equivalent of an off-licence that Harry had never seen before. Mainly because he was fifteen and wouldn't be allowed to purchase alcohol until he was seventeen, or eighteen in the muggle world. But apparently Duo didn't see the problem.

"Duo," Harry hissed, looking around to see if anyone was looking at them. "I can't go in here. He'll know who I am and that I'm underage." The shopkeeper, a balding man with a hell of a moustache, was already watching them carefully, pretending to rearrange some of the bottles of wine around the display in the window.

"Relax," Duo said, clapping a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I've checked it all out with my funky contacts. Sure, there are some interesting bits of magic, but nothing I can't handle. But you're right though." He frowned slightly. "I forgot that people would know who you are. So you get lookout duty. Stay out here and if you see a responsible adult, make a cawing noise and then run. We'll regroup at Honeydukes."

"This is stupid."

"You're stupid," Duo said cattily and stepped into the liquor store. Truth to be told, he was actually slightly relieved that Harry chose to wait outside in the snow. Duo didn't know what effects the 'interesting bits of magic' – Age Lines he would later find out – would have on Harry. But being a cold iron wielder had its uses and he stepped right through the barriers of magic without blowing up or sprouting tentacles or anything of the like. The interior of Jim's Enchantin' Offsale's was almost like a Honeydukes for alcoholics. There were drinks that claimed to have you breathing fire, make your jokes funnier or have you completely off your face with two sips. He picked the most interesting bottles, along with failsafe butterbeers, dunking them in a wicker basket before bringing his haul up to the back of the store. The shopkeeper looked like he desperately wanted to ask Duo how old he was but he knew that his age lines didn't lie and had no choice but to allow Duo to pay for them (with Harry's money).

"Are you a Hogwarts' student?" he asked, unable to resist as Duo started to walk away with the goods.

"Nope," Duo said with all honesty. "Just visiting." But the guilt in his chest grew as he said it.

* * *

Perhaps, in hindsight, getting gently smashed on the roof of Gryffindor Tower was _not _the greatest of ideas, but it was still a pretty good one. They had taken Harry's Firebolt and strapped the crate full of booze to the back and flown out of the dorm window. Duo had followed him on his trusty Comet 260. They had spent the rest of the afternoon practicing flying so that Duo wouldn't fall to his death. They had managed to find somewhere relatively flat and safe for two soon-to-be-drunk people. It was late, the sky was clear and the air was crisp and cold. Harry pondered the sanity of this as he raised the bottle of firewhiskey (mixed with Coke, which they had managed to persuade Dobby to find… somehow.) up to his lips. The image of Dobby in a muggle supermarket was a funny one and laughter bubbled out of him the same way the firewhiskey was bubbling down his throat.

"What's so funny?" Duo asked, raising an eyebrow with amusement as Harry snickered to himself.

"Nuffing," Harry said and blinked when the word didn't come out quite as he intended.

"Jesus Christ Harry_. _Was that a _slur_? You've only had, like, one bottle!"

Harry frowned. "I've had t-two! This is my first time drinking firewhiskey, shut up."

"I keep forgetting you're underage, you know, since you're expected to save the world."

"Aren't you underage as well?"

"Ehhh, I don't think so." Duo punctuated this with a huge belch and turned away to grab another bottle from the box they had haphazardly tied to the roof spire next to them. "Fuck, I swear I bought more of these," he muttered, hand groping for something that wasn't a pussy butterbeer.

"You don't _think_ so."

"It's hard to tell when you don't know your birthday."

Harry didn't say anything for a moment and could only stare at Duo, his eyes huge. "Y-you don't have a birthday?" he said, voice wobbling as if that was perhaps the saddest thing he'd ever heard.

"Harry, I was a street rat for the majority of my childhood. We don't exactly get birth certificates." Duo's quest for hard liquor proved successful and he straightened up and was startled to find a near tearful Harry. "What - are you _crying_?"

"No. _No_," Harry said and hiccupped a little. "Just-"

"Hey, don't worry about it buddy. You're just emotional due to the booze." Duo clapped a hand on Harry's back and pulled him closer in a brotherly gesture. "Us orphans, we're tough right? Look at us, we're sitting on the fucking roof in frigid weather, drinking hardcore whisky and as soon as we hit the New Year, we're giving Hogwarts a fireworks show they won't be forgetting any time soon. How awesome's that?"

Harry considered this and realised that, yeah, this was actually a pretty good New Year and that life wasn't really _that _awful right now. Sure, he was still a suspect for Cedric's death and Voldemort was still trying to kill him and he still hadn't had his first kiss. _'But,' _he mused, the alcohol pleasantly warm inside him and all his homework actually done. _'But it could be worse.' _"Yeah, I suppose," he finally said, dropping the empty bottle and watching it clatter down roof tiles into the darkness.

"Good. Don't get bummed out about my shitty circumstances 'kay? Now let's get these babies ready."

For Christmas, the Weasley twins had very thoughtfully sent Harry a bumper pack of their newly developed fireworks, designed to deafen and possibly blind everyone in the immediate vicinity for the next two days. They had also, again very thoughtfully, provided Harry with two pairs of sunglasses and earmuffs just in case. Harry thought that they'd do the 'light-it-then-run-away' routine that was standard with most fireworks, but Duo seemed content just to light the first one and then chuck it nonchalantly off the roof.

"I don't think that's how you-"

"Sure it is!"

The red-hot fizzling end of the fuse became smaller and smaller, twirling as it fell into the shadows. The silence was intense and loaded with expectation.

"_Here we go_," Duo whispered.

The firework screamed into life and shot through a window with a crash and an ear-splittingshriek_. _It proceeded to explode inside what Harry guessed was most probably a classroom.

"Hmmm." Duo squinted at the flares of light bursting through the destroyed window below them, shrugged, and reached for another rocket. "Next one."

Harry swiftly jabbed him in the side with an elbow. "You absolute _prat._"

The rest of the fireworks were aimed upwards, (where they belonged, in Harry's opinion) though Duo had the disconcerting habit of lighting them and merely holding them at arm's length before they shot up into the clear sky. They both lay underneath the blooming lights and bathed in golden sparks that fell around them like snow. The noise was deafening, but so very worth it.

"You know," Harry shouted, raising a new bottle to the sky and briefly admiring the way the lights played on the glass and the bubbles. "_This_ could be your birthday!"

"What?"

"Your birthday! It could be today!"

Duo's laughter contained a wild and loose edge to it, the alcohol having finally dug slightly into his brain. "Naw man. New Year's Day? That'd suck ass. Everyone would be broke and busy with partying and, and, and it'd be really shitty. _Come on_, don't make today be my birthday."

But Harry had already made up his mind that January 1st was Duo Maxwell's birthday and offered his bottle to Duo in a toast. "To your birthday," Harry said with more solemnity than a drunken toast deserved.

Duo's shoulders sagged dramatically as he relented. "To my birthday," he agreed, knocking the bottles together with a _clink_. "And to – " Duo stopped, frowned for a moment, but shook off whatever it was. "And to Sir Cadogan and Hagrid's hippogriffs!"

"To Dobby and his tea cosy!"

"To _Snape!_"

Harry gasped, looking genuinely affronted. "Never."

The rest of the night disappeared in lights and bangs and stupid toasts. In the middle of the night, Harry woke up with his scar burning and a murderous urge in his chest. Alcohol still thrummed in his veins and if he had been able to stand, he would have grabbed the Voldie-doll and probably stabbed it a couple million times. But because his head was still with full of liquid, he rolled over in bed and with a snore, promptly forgot all about it.

Duo's memory of himself about to toast to defeating Voldemort disappeared under the pounding pain of the next morning's hangover.

* * *

It was quarter to twelve and Maria exhaled in silver puffs, face lit up in the orange glow of Parliament across the river Thames. It was New Year's Eve and huge crowds of people had gathered to watch the London fireworks, one of the largest displays in the world. Maria spent the previous New Year in Paris, where she had been able to watch the sky around the Eiffel Tower explode in golden stars and feel the same stars trickle down her throat in the form of champagne. But this year it was back home in London for her.

A group of raucous, more than probably tipsy, young men broke out into a premature _Auld Lang Syne_, but Maria didn't mind. Her mobile buzzed in her handbag and she smiled as she flipped it open, warmth flaring in her chest. _'Hi pet, edinbursfgh is amazing :) wish u wer here xxx' _Her Jonny was up in Scotland with the lads and was probably pissed off his face, considering the state of his texting. Still, the fact that he took a moment from his boozing to message her meant something.

There was a collective hush as Big Ben rang out for the first time, the yellow face of the clock bright against the black of the sky. Maria stood on her tiptoes and caught sight of her friends a little bit away and pushed through the mass to join them. Everyone was shouting, clasping hands as they counted down to the New Year with the peals of the bell.

"Ten! Nine!"

Maria reached her friends and they let her into their circle. Someone joked about how it was just like her to always show up in the nick of time, to which Maria replied that she was just 'fashionably late' all the time.

"Eight! Seven! Six!"

The excitement was mounting and 1996 was just a few moments away.

"Five! Fo- "

The first fireworks whizzed upwards and explosions shattered the dark sky. The countdown trickled away and was replaced with murmurs of confusion: "It's too early!" "Must be a technical fault." "Typical. Oh well, that's a shame."

Maria waited for everyone to shrug it off and continue counting. But people were pointing at an unsettling image that had appeared in the sky. A sickly green skull floated high above them. A snake wriggled and squirmed in the skull's mouth and Maria winced as she looked at it. It looked far too real for her tastes. "That's morbid," someone said next to her. "If this is a joke, it's not funny." The fireworks hadn't stopped even with the appearance of the strange apparition. They became brighter, louder, more vivid and –

Someone screamed and it occurred to Maria that the fireworks were getting brighter because they were exploding closer, only a tens of metres away from the crowd and only a little higher than the trees lining the pavement. And suddenly there were fireworks _in _the crowd; flashes of light and actual fire flaring up at random points along the bank of the river.

It was when a huge snake, formed out of green and red lights and sparks and fire, reared up from the dark water that people started running. Maria stood transfixed as the snake, easily as tall as Big Ben across the Thames, launched itself towards them. Masked figures swooped around it like large bats, shooting jets of light at the fleeing people. Upon closer inspection, they were flying on _brooms_.

"But," she gasped. "But that can't possibly- that can't possibly-"

And suddenly she was flying, the force of an explosion flinging her through the air like a ragdoll. Her head hit stone when she fell to the ground.

Her handbag lay at her side and her mobile buzzed with a Happy New Year message from Jonny.

**End Chapter 7**

* * *

**AN **So I was just chilling and eating an ice cream and listening to music when I looked at the date. And realised that it was a Monday. Which is an update day. And this chapter was not ready. So it's 1:12am now and it's unbeta'd which is totally unprofessional so there's like five million mistakes in there and I just want to go to sleep and jhfksjfhks.

Just a couple notes:

1) For my American friends, an off-licence is a liquor store

Oh. I guess only one note. Never mind.

**Makurayami Ookami, Goku, mabidiso, Giz-mix, Annoying Little Twit, jgood27, e** – you guys are awesome and I love you all. You literally make my life.


	8. Chapter 8: INTERLUDE Antics

**Cold Iron  
**

**Chapter 8: INTERLUDE: Antics**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly the odd vulgar joke from Duo.)

**AN**: I don't normally do this, and any credible or sane fanfic author probably wouldn't do this, but here's an episode of Duo and Gryffindor trio banter, which takes place some time in the future and completely messes up the atmosphere of the ending of the last chapter. As a recent reviewer (Jiltanith, thank you!) has just pointed out, it's been eleven months since I last updated and I refuse to let a year go by (again). This has been in my harddrive forever so, um, I guess this is proof that I'm not dead and this fic is still in my heart. Please forgive me!

* * *

As per usual, Ron was bitching about something. "Yeah, that was a complete kick to the bollocks."

"Your face is a complete kick to the bollocks," Duo quipped.

Ron looked baffled and looked at Duo with an incredulous expression. "How does that make any sense?"

Duo sighed. He had been trying, and failing, to teach them in the ways of modern juvenile humour. "Look," he said patiently. "It doesn't matter whether it makes sense or not. It's just what you say."

"But how is it funny?"

"'_Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog_'," Duo said sagely. "You understand it, but the frog dies in the process. Here, look. A demonstration. Harry, you're stupid."

"Your face is stupid," Harry replied dutifully, having listened and learned.

"And presto!" Duo bowed dramatically. "Instant hysterics inducing humour."

Ron noted this with all the seriousness he could muster and filed it in his brain for later use.

What Duo had failed to mention was that there was a time and place for his unique brand of jokes. Ron had the bright idea of introducing it to his potions class. After he had misread the third instruction on the board for the forth time, Snape sniffed disdainfully and said, "I see you are as incompetent as ever Weasley"

Ron muttered quietly, "Your face is incompetent," but, damningly, not as quietly as he thought.

"What was that, Weasley?" Snape said sharply as Duo shrieked with laughter.

"Oh he learns, he learns!" Duo crowed, slapping the tabletop. "Five points to Gryffindor!"

Snape scowled at the Duo. "I see you've had a hand in teaching other students nonsense. Perhaps a detention for the both of you will help solve that problem."

"Your face had a hand in teaching nonsense."

And it was so that Duo and Ron lost fifty points between them, thanks to Duo's "Your face is a childish riposte" and "If you don't shut up, I'll poison your face's table's pumpkin juice jug at dinner tomorrow" and one cheeky "Your ass is an imbecile."

Ron later stared glumly at the hourglasses in the Great Hall. The pile of rubies representing Gyffindor's points was depressingly small. "Hermione is going to kill me," he muttered in an undertone. "I've just lost all the points she got for that arithmetic project she kept banging on about."

Duo just flapped a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. I've gotcha covered."

"How?" Harry asked. "Unless you can earn fifty plus points in one day, Ron's dead."

Duo just tapped the side of his nose and smiled. Both Harry and Ron knew that mannerism well enough to know to not ask any questions.

The next day, the ruby-filled hourglass was substantially fuller, only a little behind Hufflepuff. The day after that, they were in the lead. Harry and Ron gaped open-mouthed at the hourglasses along with the rest of the students, faces tinged red with the glow of the rubies.

"How did you do… whatever you did?" Ron said weakly.

Duo shrugged. "In my world we call it 'hacking'. These contact lenses are awesome!" He leant in and whispered with a large grin, "Five points to Gryffindor Mr. Weasley for that particularly eye-catching outfit you're wearing today."

Ron looked down. "What're you talking about, it's my unifo-"

A couple rubies trickled into the mountain of points.

Ron's mouth clicked shut with understanding as a Slytherin called out, "It's jinxed! Bloody cheats!"

"Ten points from Slytherin for foul language," Duo called out cattily, middle finger snapping up.

For the next several days, Duo flung points out like sweets.

"Fifty-six points to Ravenclaw for lending me a quill."

"Seventy-two points to Gryffindor for eating that potato."

"Three-hundred-and-twelve points to Hufflepuff for being awesome."

And he took points away for the most inane causes.

"Thirty points from Slytherin for unnecessarily slow walking and causing pedestrian traffic," Duo said cheerfully, stuck in a busy corridor and late for his next class.

"What!" the seventh year snapped as he turned around.

"Well it's either that or a punch to the back of the head. I thought I'd do you a favour by sparing your brain cells." Duo tapped his chin in mock consideration. He brightened. "Oh, and another ten for yelling at me." Duo's hoots of laughter as the Slytherin chased him down the hall could be heard across the school.

Understandably, Slytherin grumbled with protest. Even though it was common knowledge that all's fair in love and house points, and even though Professor Snape was the most prejudiced git of all when it came to house favouritism, they banded together against Gryffindor, especially against a certain braided maniac.

After a couple days of pointless bickering and an offhand comment about from a girl about 'Americans being cheaters', Duo finally threw his hands up in exasperation. "Fine! Okay. One hundred to Slytherin for being annoying assholes."

But then promptly took it away again when a first year tried to trip him up at lunch.

Despite this generous gesture, Professor Dumbledore, who had watched the proceedings with growing amusement, felt that he should probably intervene before the school broke out into civil war and approached him. "Now Duo," he said, laying a hand on Duo's shoulder. He sounded stern, but the mad twinkle in his eyes gave the game away. "Perhaps you should stop tampering with the house points."

"Was that a suggestion?" Duo asked hopefully.

"More of a request, I'm afraid."

Duo sighed. "It was fun while it lasted, Al."

The next morning, the house points had returned to normal numbers and the school settled back into a normal routine. But it didn't escape Snape's notice that the headmaster had added a sneaky forty points to Gryffindor for 'ingenious magical manipulation' and 'Maxwell being an ornery little shit', but Professor Dumbledore probably hadn't said the last one out loud.

When the potions master coughed something that sounded suspiciously like, "Favouritism," Professor McGonagall just gave him a look that would have made the toughest plant whither.

"Honestly, I thought you would be above this," she said, unsurprisingly quite happy with the sudden jump in numbers. "Your jealousy isn't attractive Severus."

Snape's brain juttered to a stop and a dazzling, earth-shattering comeback sprung to his mind. "Your face isn't-," he said automatically, but clamped down on the last word before it could escape him and magically developed a hacking cough at that moment.

Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing," he said, pretending to rub his chest. "Just something in my throat."

She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. "Well," she said after a moment. "I hope you feel better later. You should see Poppy about that. It doesn't sound like a cough I've heard before."

As she walked away, Snape buried his face in his hands. _'Oh gods,' _he thought in despair._ 'It's contagious. That boy is bloody contagious.'_

**End Chapter 8**

* * *

**AN:** It was probably a really bad idea posting this, but NO REGRETS. I'll get the proper chapter up soon and see how I feel about this pointless interlude then. I bet this was planned to go somewhere really specific in the story and has some foreshadowing I've completely forgotten about... oh well.

PS Also this bloody website seems to have messed up all the formatting again fajdhfsjdfsjkfhakwiruifs.


	9. Chapter 9: First Impressions

**Cold Iron**

**Chapter 9: First Impressions**

**Disclaimer**: Harry Potter and Gundam Wing belong to their respective owners and I make no profit from writing this. This applies to this and all chapters of my work.

**Rating**: T/PG-13

**Warning: **1x2, vaguely crude language (and possibly vulgar jokes from Duo.)

* * *

Duo woke up with the sun in his eyes, which triggered his headache quite nicely. This was either the worst or best hangover that Duo had ever experienced. It was the worst because the pain was un-fucking-believable, and coming from him, that was saying something. He hadn't felt that bad since Trowa and him had hid in an OZ whisky distillery and they decided to take a crate of the stuff for the road.

But it was the best because hungover Harry was _hilarious_. "Duo," Harry rasped, eyes still screwed shut and trying not to fall out of bed. "Duo, I think I'm _dying_."

"You're overreacting, buddy," Duo said, leaning over to give him a slap on the back, but then reconsidered. Harry seriously looked like he was going to upchuck. The green in his face went with his eyes quite spectacularly. Duo managed to swish and flick the rubbish bin from the corner of the room accurately enough so it landed in front of Harry, who grabbed it gratefully.

And then threw up.

Duo turned away to give the guy some privacy and surveyed the room. _'Oh man, we really did a number on it,' _he thought, wincing. There were butterbeer bottles _everywhere_ plus the odd firewhiskey, and one of Harry's shoes was hanging from the chandelier. Something which may have once been an armchair was smoking gently in the corner. (Duo recalled drinking something that made his breath flammable.) The windows all seemed to be in one piece though, and a quick scan of his reflection revealed that no penises had been scribbled on him, or worse, magicked on him. He scratched his head and stopped to pull Harry's glasses out of his hair.

Luckily, it seemed that they had been sane enough last night to not touch anyone else's stuff, but still, Duo hadn't meant to go completely mental.

This was bad, Duo realised. Scratch bad, it was unacceptable. Why the hell had he drunk so much? Sure, he hadn't been blackout drunk and he could still remember a large portion of the previous night, but the fact that he had let himself get so inebriated in the first place made him want to slap himself.

Here is Duo's list of _what the fuck was I thinking?_

-He had got drunk.

-He had got someone else drunk. (Admittedly, the someone else was a friend, but Duo couldn't afford to trust anyone here 100%. Harry was pretty up there though.)

-He had drunk unfamiliar substances, without knowing _exactly _what they were going to do to him.

'_Are you a soldier? Or are you some dumb fratboy?' _he thought, livid with himself. He was wasting time. He needed to get home so he would stop feeling so damn _relaxed _here.

Harry, completely oblivious to Duo's furious self-loathing, was busy throwing up. Duo stuffed all the angry feelings away, deep inside his chest to be dealt with later and turned his attention to Harry.

"I'm never drinking again," Harry declared solemnly. "I had no idea it could be that bad."

"Aww, grow a pair," Duo forced a grin, picking his way to the bathroom. He filled up a sink and dunked his head into it. He washed his face briskly and remembered to put his contacts in. Feeling a tiny bit better, he brought a glass of water to Harry. "It's going to be such a pain tidying this up."

"Tidying up what?"

Duo gave him his glasses back and, just for a moment, soldier or not, thought that the horrified expression on Harry's face might have made it all a little worth it.

After a vigorous cleaning session and Duo refusing to let the house elves deal with it ("They didn't make the mess!" "It's their _job._" "Don't care, now shut up and hold the trash bag open.") they finally made it to breakfast, where Snape had been lying in wait for them.

They both winced as the potions professor grabbed back of their necks and nearly shoved their faces into their plates. Duo had to bite back a _"Dude!" _and hold back a punch, while Harry turned green again from the sudden movement.

"Very interesting show you boys put on last night," Snape said silkily, his grip tightening around their collars.

"Did you like it?" Duo said, grinning like a class-A brat.

"Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more, if you hadn't _completely destroyed a classroom_."

Duo was about to reply with something dangerously catty, when they were interrupted by Dumbledore clapping behind them.

"Oh it was good, wasn't it, Severus!" he said, beaming. "Very well done. The Weasley twins had a hand in it, I suppose?"

Harry nodded nervously.

"Excellent, excellent. I'll have to ask them how they come up with such intricate displays. Now, I must apologise, Severus, but I have to borrow the boys for a second."

Snape just stared at the headmaster coolly and inclined his head. "Understood." He slunk away. Duo mouthed a thank you at Dumbledore, who pretended not to notice, but smiled slightly anyway. But only slightly.

"Harry, Duo, you can eat later. We have things to discuss."

Somehow, they both knew that it wouldn't be good things.

* * *

They stood in front of a shallow stone basin inside Dumbledore's office. Duo couldn't stop staring at the silver clouds that swirled inside it. He didn't need to activate his contact lenses in order to know that this was a super magical object.

"It's a pensieve," Harry whispered. "You can put thoughts and memories inside there."

"You can what?"

"Harry's correct." Dumbledore came up behind them, holding a small glass bottle of the same silver liquid. "In here are the memories of a young wizard who was at last night's New Year celebration in London. After what happened, I sought him out and asked him whether he'd be kind enough to show us what he saw. But before we have a look, Duo, I understand that Mrs. Elffrost asked you to keep your cold iron on you at all times. But I believe that, just this once, it would be acceptable for you to take it off."

"Why?"

"Let's just say that accidents happen and I would hate for you to be stuck inside a bowl full of my memories. They can be very dull sometimes."

Duo thought this was wise and pulled the amulet off and lay it on Dumbledore's desk, where he was assured it would be safe.

Dumbledore then tipped the bottle and silver threads dripped down into the pensieve. The surface rippled, then cleared so Duo and Harry were both looking down at the image of a crowded river bank. Duo could make out the golden lights of the London Eye and parliament dancing in the reflection of the river.

"We had a few people there," Dumbledore said softly. "But we couldn't have expected…" he seemed to shake himself. "Well, I'll let you both see for yourselves." And he pushed them in.

Duo flailed for a moment, but the fall wasn't long and it was more of a float than a fall. He landed heavily. They were outside. It was night and the air was charged with excitement. There were thousands of people there, pressed right up against the stone wall bordering the river. Duo could also see people waving on the bridges, cameras flashing and heads wrapped in hats and scarves. There were people singing, both drunk and sober, and the police were out in force but they seemed to be relaxed and enjoying themselves. Duo looked around, but couldn't tell whose memory this was; there were that many people.

Dumbledore was right. They couldn't have expected the attack.

Harry's face was slack with horror as the fireworks, so similar to the ones they had set off on the roof, but vicious and lethal, bombarded the crowd. His fists were tight and shaking and he looked like he was going to throw up again. Duo was about to say something, anything, to make him feel better, when a man tripped and fell near them. Duo let out a cry as he started to rush over to him, but Dumbledore held him back. "It's too late, Duo," he said softly. "It's already happened."

The man was crushed by the stampede.

Explosions threw tens of people back like kicked pebbles. Some were set on fire that just couldn't be put out. Some of the fireworks left craters in the pavement, and Duo could see a charred, black hand fall limply over edge of one.

Then the Death Eaters came and Duo realised very quickly that they hadn't a shred of humanity in them. They were cruel, crueler than he could have imagined and as bodies fell and the flames grew higher, he was very painfully reminded of another bombing in another time.

There was a flash of green and a child fell at his feet, his eyes wide open and face twisted in terror. His mother cried out and clutched him to her chest.

Another family Duo couldn't save.

_Father Maxwell. Sister Helen._

"I think you boys have perhaps seen enou-" Dumbledore said, but Duo moved his shoulder away from the headmaster's outstretched hand.

"I need to see it all, Professor," Duo said softly.

"I don't think-"

"_Please_. Harry, you go back," he added. Harry didn't need to see this. He wasn't the one that needed convincing, and he knew that Harry had enough nightmares as it was. Harry looked pale now, even bathed in the glow of the fires. "Go," Duo said again, wanting to protect his friend. "I'll catch up."

Dumbledore considered this and nodded. "Very well. You'll be taken out when the memory comes to a natural end. We'll see you back in Hogwarts."

And they were gone. Duo took a deep breath, inhaled the smoke and the ashes and the screams. And he watched.

The Death Eaters flung muggles into the freezing water, they spun them around like puppets in the air, they set their clothes alight and created snakes and spiders to bite and hiss and poison them.

He watched as people were trampled and burned and tortured and killed by bolts of magic. He watched the Death Eaters fly like bats and insects, heard them scream with laughter.

He tried to move along the river, but realised he had to stay close to the wizard whose memory this belonged to, who had been now identified and currently trying to help some of the injured. Duo sat with the dying instead, even though he knew they couldn't see him or feel him. He whispered comfort to them and tried to find out their names if he could. One young woman had her phone next to her on the pavement, and it said 'To: Maria From: Jonny' at the top of the cracked, glowing screen. _"_Goodnight Maria," Duo said and he moved on. He wondered whether Jonny knew what had happened to her by now.

He had seen this scene many times, too many times, at home, but the magic and the cloaks and masks added a nightmarish quality that should only stay inside your head. Duo watched the fleeing people and remembered that they weren't part of a war. They had no idea what was going on.

Finally, the memory came to an end and Duo felt himself pulled up and out of the pensieve. He emerged with a gasp, as if having been underwater for a long time.

Harry was seated at the headmaster's desk, clutching a steaming mug of thick hot chocolate. He was staring out of the window into the bright daylight, but Duo could tell how angry and sickened he was. Another mug sat on the desk waiting for Duo.

"Eighty-thousand people were there last night," Dumbledore said. "Over two-hundred bodies were found so far, and hundreds more missing."

Duo looked at him. "Why?" he asked.

"Just because things weren't going his way," Dumbledore replied. "Just because we moved the Devil's Bone right before he could steal it. _This_-" He gestured to the pensieve."Was a tantrum. Usually he isn't as obvious or flashy as this, but as you just saw, that's starting to change."

Duo looked back at the pensieve, looked back at the hell that was swirling inside it. Looked at Harry, who was so skinny and pale and just a teenager. So _weak_. "I need to write a letter," Duo said suddenly, grabbed his amulet and left.

The door shut and Dumbledore sat down heavily into his chair, took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes before saying, "Well done, Harry."

Harry jerked, upsetting his drink. "Why? I didn't do anything."

"Oh, you did a great deal more than you think. I believe that you are a big factor in Mr. Maxwell's decision to stay with us." Dumbledore sounded so _proud_ and a spark lit in Harry's chest and warmed him more than the hot chocolate ever could.

"He's staying?" he asked, hopefully. Harry didn't want anything like what he had just seen to happen again, _ever_. It was unrealistic he couldn't let it happen again. And he knew they would need Duo's help to beat Voldemort.

Dumbledore smiled in a way that took years off his face and said, "If he doesn't stay, then I will eat my hat."

* * *

_Dear Guys,_

_I would have contacted you earlier but the stupid bird wouldn't take my letter until now. I'm so sorry for leaving you in suspense for almost two weeks. I'm fine and well, not exactly among friends but I'm trying my darndest to fix that. (But hey you know, they'll love me before they know it.) I'll be camping out here for a while though, so I'm afraid you'll have to get used to life without me for a bit. (I bet Wuffers is quite grateful for the break actually. He can rest his poor, tortured nerves hehehe.) _

_In all seriousness, the people here are insane, but you know, on the good side of insane. But there's this one guy who isn't. He's like a guy version of that crazy OZ colonel except super racist and with magical powers. And he's really evil. Apparently I have to help stop him. __**It's my destiny**__. (I wish I were joking.) I don't know how long it'll take, but they've promised to help me get home once this guy's out of the picture. Tell G I'll be out of action for a while. The bastard should understand. _

_I can't say much more. I don't want you thinking that I've totally lost it. But jeez, will I have a lot to tell you when I get back. Reply via birdmail. I don't know when I'll be able to write again so don't wait up. _

_Hee-chan, Tro, Quat, Fei – don't do anything dumb. If one of you gets your ass kicked by OZ, I'll kick it a million times harder when I get back. Send me a photo will you? I want to show my sexy friends off to everyone who doesn't want to kill me. _

_Stay safe kids and don't forget to polish Deathscythe! _

_Duo _

_Jan' 1996 (Trippin' right?) _

No words could describe the immensity of Heero's relief at seeing that familiar, tight scrawl again. The tight knot of stress that had been inhabiting his stomach since Duo disappeared slowly unfolded and relaxed. _He's alive, he's alive, he's alive. _

As he held the sheet of, of all things, _parchment_ he felt a shaky sensation near his knees and realised that it was his legs threatening to give way. Quatre actually did collapse into a chair, hands hovering near his eyes as he chuckled, "Oh, Duo. Only you could get into this situation."

The last couple days had been pure hell for them, Heero in particular. Normally, they wouldn't have worried so much if Duo had disappeared on one of his trips or missions, as he always came back laughing, maybe slightly beat up, but still laughing. But having _seen_ him vanish with the same bird (phoenix, Trowa had said) that was staring at them now was more than slightly worrying.

"So the idiot's okay? Then where the hell is he?" Wufei said, his own relief vanishing under indignant fury at being made to worry over something so fucking stupid. "He's with wizards?"

"Apparently so," Quatre said with a shaky laugh.

"_Wizards_?"

"If you don't believe in magic after seeing _that_," Trowa said, gesturing to the preening bird. "I don't think anything will convince you."

Wufei shook his head in a resigned manner. "Tell Maxwell that I'm going to relieve him of his manhood when he gets back," he said, heading out of the living room, probably to sharpen his sword. "He owes it to me after all the stress I've gone through on his account."

"Duly noted," Heero said, finding some paper to start a reply. Quatre and Trowa went to start assembling a box of things they thought Duo might appreciate for his Magic Land Adventure plus write their own letters. (Wufei was probably doing the same in his room.)

Heero didn't really know how to start with the response. He was never good with letters, preferring instead to send quick, short emails that usually consisted of: 'Mission accepted' and 'Mission complete' But the bird was staring at him, telling him with its beady black eyes to hurry the hell up. Heero glared back. Trowa had been the only one who hadn't tried to throttle it on sight.

It chirruped, reminding Heero that he had a letter to write.

_Duo_,

Heero paused. '_Duo'_, or '_Dear_ _Duo'_? He decided to go with '_Dear'_, as that's what he had written to them. He squeezed the word in.

_Dear Duo, _

Now what should he write? _'Where are you? How do I get there? Thank God you're safe?'_

'_Write it, write it,' _said his brain. Heero held the pen down on the paper too long and a big black blot formed. He wadded the letter up in disgust and tossed it in the direction of the bin.

The bird made a noise and suddenly blew a jet of fire at the paper ball. It caught aflame and shriveled up midair. Heero stared the phoenix, eyebrows raised high. It warbled.

"I'm writing it!" He started again.

_Dear Duo,_

_Good to hear that you're safe. Wufei told me to tell you that you have approximately twenty punches to the face and one to the trousers awaiting your arrival home for causing him to worry. If we had known that magicians had kidnapped you then we wouldn't have worried so much. _

That wasn't strictly true. They would have worried none-the-less. But the punch to the pants part was very true.

_I'm concerned about this 'magical' racist however. Surely it would be more effective to have another one of us there with you. Please consider this. _Heero had tried earlier to force the bird to take him to where Duo was, but it just pecked him on the head and hit him with a huge wing.

There was another thing in Duo's letter that didn't make sense, well, other than the whole wizard thing. _Also, you say two weeks, but only a few days have passed here. You haven't hit your head, have you? _A different time flow? Heero frowned, hating being confused. Where the hell could Duo be?

_Get our asses kicked by OZ? Try to remember whom you're writing to and rethink that sentence. Come back safe. Don't let your guard down. _

He hesitated. _'Miss you?' _He folded up the letter before his brain could convince him to write it and slotted it into the envelope along with a photo he had quickly printed off.

It took them a little under half an hour to collect everything, before they sealed up the box with duct tape. They figured it wouldn't need an address, not that anyone knew what they could write as an address anyway._ 'Duo Maxwell, the Wizards?'_ Heero wrapped it up with string so that it could carry it more easily and held it out to the bird.

They watched as the phoenix took it in one, large claw and moments later, the only remnant of its presence was the warmth of its departure on their faces.

* * *

"I'm actually kind of nervous," Duo admitted. It had been two weeks since he decided to stay, two weeks since he quite impulsively scribbled a letter to the guys at home saying, "Sorry, I decided I actually want to help these guys, who I am in no way or form indebted to, and am leaving you to fight OZ alone. So good luck with that! See you soon! XOXO"

God, he hated himself sometimes.

But not only had they replied and not get mad and swear to murder him, but they sent him a care package. A freaking care package. Duo's heart nearly burst when he opened the box and found his weapons and laptop and some food inside it. And their letters meant more to him than they could possibly realise. The weapons he had on him at the time of his kidnapping were only emergency ones meant for surprise attacks. The ones inside the box were for missions. He carried his gun in a shoulder holster under his spanking new uniform and immediately felt safer. He actually declared to Harry, "I no longer feel naked! Ha-HA!" Harry had just given him a weird look.

His new uniform. Not borrowed, not Harry's, not stolen but _his._ _'Looks like I'm in this for the long run now,_' he thought, touching the Gryffindor emblem at his breast. The rest of the school were due to come back tonight, hence the nerves.

"Don't be," Harry said, obviously excited his friends were coming back. Four weeks by himself with only Duo for company must have been hard. "They won't bite!"

They didn't bite, but fuck, Duo had forgotten just how many of them there were. The tables he had only seen empty were now alive with students and covered in more food than he had ever seen in his whole life. And of course, being the new guy in a place that just didn't get new guys, Duo had a fair amount of attention. And everyone is grateful that they have something to talk about other than the attack on New Year's Eve.

Cover story: He was from America, homeschooled by his grandmother until she died a little while ago. Both of his parents were workaholic muggles so they sent him to Hogwarts.

Harry dutifully recited Duo's fake history as Duo tried not to blanch at all the lies.

Hermione, a bushy haired and sharp-eyed girl, found holes in it almost instantly. "They sent you here? But there are lots of schoo-"

There was a clatter and an "Ow!" as Harry stepped on her foot. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this right now," he said slowly. "Duo's feeling, er, a little emotional about it."

Duo just raised an eyebrow and Harry rolled his eyes.

"Yeah! You know, bloke's grandmother's just died and everything. Save the interrogation, Hermione," Ron said, patting Duo's back in a reassuring manner. "She gets like that sometimes," he whispered as Hermione shot him an affronted look, but she softened when she looked at Duo.

"He's right, I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Duo said, feeling ridiculous for accepting an apology for an imaginary grandmother. "In a better place, it was her time, yada yada." Which was true. She probably was. Whoever she was.

"So how was your holiday?" Hermione asked. "You weren't too bored, were you?"

"Nah, got my buddy Harry here to entertain me." Duo grabbed Harry in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles in his hair. "And trust me, he's very entertaining when he's drunk."

"You what!"

When Duo thinks back on it, this would probably be the point where he was labeled 'the bad influence' by Hermione. Ron, on the other hand, was grinning like they had been told that the Christmas holidays had just been extended until April. "Mate, you didn't," Ron said. "Did you?"

Harry nodded, still trying to get out of Duo's grip. "Duo's fault. We flew up on to the roof and got completely pissed. Ugh, Duo, gerrof!"

"Had a headache for days!" Duo declared, finally relenting. "But we have some left over in the common room if you-"

"No, thank you! As a prefect, I'm afraid I'll have to confiscate- Ron, stop looking so upset!"

"But _Hermione."_

"Well, you can confiscate it if you can find it," Duo said, leaning back casually. "I might have buried it in the Forbidden Forest for all you know. Joking, joking," he backpedaled as Hermione started to look threatening. "Don't worry, I'll get rid of it all."

She smiled and thanked him and the conversation continued around him as he stared up at the ceiling. It was a clear night and the stars and moon shone as brightly as if he were in space himself. But his contacts revealed it to be more magic and he amused himself by figuring out how the processed magic weaved together to form the illusion.

He was distracted when a clear voice said, "Hi Harry, had a nice Christmas?" A girl, dressed in Ravenclaw robes and a slight blush, was smiling shyly behind him.

Harry fumbled. "Er, yeah, Cho. Good thanks, you?"

"Yeah, it was. Glad to be back though."

'_Oh man,' _Duo thought, watching them both go red and flail for something else to talk about. _'This is so awkward.'_

She left after a minute and Harry tried to casually get more carrots, but couldn't seem to get his hands to work as he dropped them on the way to his plate and both Ron and Duo sniggered at the same time.

"So, what's the story there then?" Duo asked when Harry finally got more food on his plate without losing control of his fork.

"What story?" Harry scowled at Duo's waggling eyebrows. "We're just friends."

"Uh huh, sure. And I'm a potato."

"You could be."

Later, when Hermione was talking to Lavender about something, Duo leant over to Ron and whispered, "Hey, you know I'm getting rid of the booze?"

Ron nodded morosely. "Don't remind me."

"Didn't exactly say _how _I was getting rid of it, did I?"

It took a moment, but the look Ron gave him when understood what Duo was insinuating was one of pure friendship and they bumped fists over the gravy bowl. (Because of this firstbump, they _would_ end up flat out drunk on the fringe of the Forbidden Forest, but only much later after Duo bonds with Hermione over _knowledge _and deems it safe_._)

Harry was just relieved that everyone kind of liked each other.

* * *

But then there was the case of people liking each other _too _much.

Harry wasn't sure if introducing Duo to the Weasley twins was the best of ideas. In fact, he was certain that he heard a far off '_BOOM' _in the distance, heralding the arrival of an apocalypse. He knew now that the three forces of hell had met, no one was coming out unscathed from whatever plot they would hatch.

There was a small silence as they regarded each other solemnly, sizing each other up. An understanding that only the greatest of pranksters could comprehend passed between them.

"Speciality?" George said sharply.

"Bombs and stealth."

"Aim?" Fred said.

"Mayhem."

"Target?"

"Anyone who pisses me off." Duo considered. "Also anyone who's fun to piss off."

The twins looked delighted. "Then you're alright!" they said, linking arms with him as if Duo had always been there. Duo looked totally at ease.

Ron approached, looking around curiously. "D'you hear that?" he asked, brow furrowed. "There was an explosion somewhere."

"It was nothing little bro," George said. "It was just the sound of the beginning of a beautiful friendship. How good's your sneaking around?" he asked Duo.

Duo grinned and puffed out his chest. "I can get into the girls' dormitory."

It took a while for everyone to absorb this nugget of information. "No," George said, jaw slack with shock.

"Even _we_ can't get up there." Fred began, his own expression mirroring his twin's. They had spent the entirety of their second year unsuccessfully trying to get into the mystery of Gryffindor tower that were the female dorms, giving up only when threatened by McGonagall herself.

"Well," Duo said, examining his nails casually, as if handling stairs morphing into a waxed slide beneath your feet was a child's play. "All I did was shimmy up there and, you know, filled the room with frogs. That's all."

"I don't believe you." George was awe-struck.

Duo just shrugged, but grinned obnoxiously. "You'll see."

Half an hour later, Parvati and Lavender decided that they had had enough of the Welcome Back festivities and headed up to the dorms. The conversation Ron, Harry, the twins and Duo had been having about Quidditch died as they watched the girls disappear up the spiral stairs. Hermione noticed the sudden lull and put down her knitting.

"What are you looking -?"

They all turned to her, fingers at their lips and Hermione fell silent.

"Wait for it… wait for it… " Duo said in hushed tones.

They didn't have to wait long. There was a shriek, a slam of a door and the sounds of heavy footsteps as the two girls clattered down the stairs, red faced and flushed.

"WHO," Lavender shrieked. "WHO DID THIS?"

"Who did what?" someone asked.

"You know what I'm talking about!"

Nope, no one knew except for a chosen few, who were trying to not to implode with laughter. It was a ribbit that nearly undid them.

"Er, Lav, you do realise there's a frog on your shoulder?"

She freaked the fuck out.

Every girl the in common room (except for Hermione, who realised who the culprit was almost immediately) stampeded up the stairs to see for themselves. The screams were glorious. The twins were nearly crying, slapping a triumphant Duo on the back.

"How many are there? Tell us!" they begged.

"A good hundred or so. So that _every surface is covered._"

Harry was just confused. "How did you even get that many up there?"

"Swish and flick, dude! Swish and flick! Oh yeah! They haven't found the tampons in the bathroom yet!" Duo crowed loudly, not at all worried about being overheard due to the noise. He had spent the good part of Saturday hanging tampons from taps, showers, the ceiling, everywhere and anywhere. He had also slapped whatever panty pads he could find on to the walls.

There was a minor glitch however and when Duo looked back fondly at this event, he would attribute his downfall to this one glitch. He had forgotten the one girl right in front of him.

"Duo Maxwell… " Hermione eyes were burning with righteous anger, nearly ripping the woolly hat she had been knitting apart. All the boys leaned back from her wisely. "Do you know how expensive tampons are?"

"Oh, so those where yours?" Duo said stupidly. "I had you pegged down as a panty pad person."

Hermione bristled, looked like she was about to yell at him and then suddenly reconsidered. She stood up very calmly, too calmly, and disappeared upstairs for a moment.

"Duo, mate, I'd run if I were you," Ron whispered, but Duo waved his caution off.

"I fear no one."

He feared no one until the girls came back down, murder burning in their eyes and a victorious Hermione at the lead. "It appears that the female dorms have been breached and vandalised. But I've just made an offer to the girls. Whoever catches Mr. Maxwell will earn a 'get out of detention free' card, if the detention is issued by a prefect."

Duo looked around. There were an awful lot of girls there, most of whom looked more than vaguely irritated at having their rooms invaded by amphibians and their feminine items used as decorations. "You wouldn't. That's exploitation of power," Duo said in a low voice, paling when Hermione only nodded at him.

"Go get him," she said and all female eyes turned to Duo, who then realised that this was not a situation he wanted to be in.

He bolted out of the common room and the horde of girls followed him.

"Don't forget that curfew begins soon!" Hermione called after them.

"That… was cruel, Hermione," Ron said, watching the crowd disappear through the portrait hole. "The poor sod doesn't even know his way around here yet."

"It doesn't matter to me," Hermione said, completely nonplussed. "Serves him right for messing around with our belongings. And those frogs! Frogs everywhere!"

The peace didn't last long, as Duo strolled back in only a minute later, having lost the girls near the portrait. "Touché, Hermione," he said. "Remind me not to piss you off again."

"Go clean up."

Duo trudged dutifully up and began to clean up his mess, and wondered, just maybe, he could let the house elves deal with this one.

Back downstairs, the boys were still trying to figure out how he bypassed the slide.

"I still want to know where he got those frogs from," Ron said.

"I want to know if he's a genius or just really, _really_ dumb," Hermione sniffed.

Harry just wanted to know how the hell he was going to tell his best friends the truth about the 'homeschooled' boy from 'America'. And judging by the glances Hermione kept sneaking him, it'd have to be soon.

**End Chapter 9**

* * *

**AN:** Two updates in two days. Crazy. I'm completely overwhelmed by the reviews and the fact that people are still reading this despite its age (I've known this bloody fic longer than I have some of my closest friends.) Thank you so much! Oh by the way, if you do review, um, could you briefly mention where you're reading from? I have a weird obsession with looking at all the countries in the reader traffic stats and it makes me happy to know that there are people in Greece or the Philippines or somewhere that are reading. It'd be really cool if you could!

A quick word concerning pairings. Leaning towards canon pairings for the HP guys, 1x2 and 3x4 for our boys. This is _not _a romance fic, but I like to have relationships just simmering in the background.

Okay, super tired right now and the smart thing to do would be leave it for tomorrow and then post it. But I'm really not that smart. Hope you enjoyed it!


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